This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 2004) on relationships between ... more This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 2004) on relationships between the Environment Agency and special interest groups, a term used here to describe non-governmental non-profit-making groups with a special interest in areas or issues in which the ...
The green movement has posed some tough questions for traditional justifications of democracy. Sh... more The green movement has posed some tough questions for traditional justifications of democracy. Should the natural world have rights? Can we take account of the interests of future generations? But questions have also been asked of the greens. Could their idealism undermine democracy? Can greens be effective democrats? In this book some of the leading writers on green political thought analyze these questions, examining the discourse of green movements concerning democracy, the status of democracy within green political thought and the political institutions that might be necessary to ensure democracy in a sustainable society.
Tilly's famous claim that 'Britain created the social movement' (Tilly 1982) might lead readers t... more Tilly's famous claim that 'Britain created the social movement' (Tilly 1982) might lead readers to assume that scholarship on social movements would be firmly established as a central field of British social science. That is not the case. Or, rather, it is not the case in relation to the dominant approach to studying social movements as it has developed across North America and Europe in recent decades, anchored as it now is around the study of contentious politics, networks, framing and, latterly, emotions. Britain has, of course, produced some of this kind of social movement scholarship, as we will show, but British scholarship on social movements also has a distinctive texture and tradition, born out of the specific cultural, political and academic contexts in which the study of social movements emerged in Britain from the late 1950s, and of the subsequent development of relationships between British social movements and the study of social movements. Therefore in this chapter we first survey the emergence of social movements and the varieties of scholarship that have developed since they became a focus of interest in the social and human sciences in the 1960s. An underlying theme within these various approaches is the question of national particularity. In parallel to the catalysing effects on the study of social movements of the US civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and the post-1968 movements in many other Western European countries, the development of social movement scholarship in Britain has been profoundly marked by the specific contours of British movement brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in... more The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in March 2019. Through a school strike, a new generation has been galvanized, representing a historical turn in climate activism. A team of social scientists from universities across Europe organized a survey of the global FFF strike events on March 15. The team surveyed protesters in 13 cities in nine European countries using the same research design to collect data, following the well-established protest survey methodology used previously in the "Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation" (CCC) project.
Investigating the recent direct action campaigns against genetically modified crops in France and... more Investigating the recent direct action campaigns against genetically modified crops in France and the United Kingdom, the authors set out to understand how contrasting judicial systems and cultures affect the way that activists choose to commit ostensibly illegal actions and how they negotiate the trade-offs between effectiveness and public accountability. The authors find evidence that prosecution outcomes across different judicial systems are consistent and relatively predictable and consequently argue that the concept of a “judicial opportunity structure” is useful for developing scholars’ understanding of social movement trajectories. The authors also find that these differential judicial opportunities cannot adequately account for the tactical choices made by activists with respect to the staging of covert or overt direct action; rather, explanations of tactical choice are better accounted for by movement ideas, cultures, and traditions.
Global Matters for Non-Governmental Public Action, 2012
As the politics of the environment have become increasingly intertwined with issues of social jus... more As the politics of the environment have become increasingly intertwined with issues of social justice, globalisation and development, environmental groups and organisations have broadened their agendas, and have sought to strengthen ties with allies in other countries, often crossing the North-South divide. The well-developed national movements in the North and the fact that many environmental issues are transnational make this instance of domestic-global political linkage in movement politics especially intriguing. In general, transnational networking is regarded as empowering groups in the South through the transfer of skills and resources from wealthier Northern groups, but this cross-boundary movement can also be invasive of local communities and agendas. Local agendas may be displaced by Northern cross-boundary ‘green traders’, who can be regarded as a kind of elite in themselves, at least in their relationships with Southern environmentalism (Baviskar 1995). This chapter aims to assess these relationships between Southern and Northern environmental groups within just one of these organisations: the Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) federation.
The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in... more The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in March 2019. Through a school strike, a new generation has been galvanized, representing a historical turn in climate activism. This wave of climate protest mobilization is unique in its tactics, global scope and appeal to teenage school students. Media coverage of these protests and high-level national and international political meetings involving the movement’s icon, Greta Thunberg, illustrate a level of global attention that no previous youth movement has ever received. A team of social scientists from universities across Europe1 organized a survey of the global FFF strike events on March 15. The team surveyed protesters in 13 cities in nine European countries using the same research design to collect data, following the well-established protest survey methodology used previously in the “Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation” (CCC) project.
Breaking Down the State: Protesters Engaged, eds Duyvendak, J.W. & Jasper, J., 2015
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
A NEW CLIMATE MOVEMENT? Extinction Rebellion's Activists' In Profile, 2020
Extinction Rebellion set out to mobilise a new generation of activists. As our data shows, they h... more Extinction Rebellion set out to mobilise a new generation of activists. As our data shows, they have in part succeeded: participants in Extinction Rebellion’s two major actions in London in 2019 had notably little prior experience of protest action, and we encountered many first- time activists. At the same time, however, our socio-demographic profile of XR’s activists in the UK reveals a broadly familiar kind of environmentalist: XR’s activists are typically highly-educated and middle- class (and though our survey did not explicitly ask this, white); they identify politically on the Left; and they consciously adopt multiple pro- environmental behaviours in the course of their everyday lives. XR’s strength has been to create a new public agency amongst people who are not ‘natural’ protesters, and perhaps even less so natural law-breakers, but who were already persuaded of the rightness of the climate cause, and frustrated with the inability of both ‘politics as usual’ and lifestyle environmentalism to bring about the kind of transformative political change that the climate emergency demands. Mobilising this group enabled XR to significantly expand the numbers of people willing to engage in environmental direct action, broadening its age profile, and bringing non-violent direct action on climate change into the centre of political life in the UK. The report comes with an Afterword from Sian Vaughan, a first-time Extinction Rebellion activist.
The Fundi-Realo controversy in European green parties stems from unresolved ambiguities in their ... more The Fundi-Realo controversy in European green parties stems from unresolved ambiguities in their ideology and strategy. The problem for the green parties is that the very areas that are most ambiguous, such as the balance between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary politics and the plurality of social movement issues, are the strongest basis of their claim to have developed an innovatory politics. Their common radical democratic ideology produces different issues and debates in each of the four parties examined here and this suggests that national ideological traditions, as well as institutional variables, are important for a comparative explanation of the nature of Fundi-Realo conflicts.
At the beginning of the 1990s France was one of the few electoral success stories for green parti... more At the beginning of the 1990s France was one of the few electoral success stories for green parties. Whilst elsewhere the green vote seemed to have stabilised as a minor party vote, in France greens began to surpass the ten per cent barrier and threaten the major parties. By ...
The central aim of this paper is to show how different types of green movement respond to questio... more The central aim of this paper is to show how different types of green movement respond to questions of social policy. An important factor in this is a difference in attitudes to the state between more anarchistic greens and those greens that are prepared to accept a permanent and/or strategic role for the state. The paper is divided into two parts. In part one, after defining the green movement, it outlines how different green social movements from local groups, direct action protestors, established environmental groups and green political parties, have developed analyses, responses and alternatives to social policy issues. Part two of the paper looks at some of the ideological/ theoretical debates within green politics with regard to social policy, with particular regard to the role of the state. It goes on to look at some of the ways in which European green parties have viewed social policy, and at proposals they have advanced for moving the aim of social policy from "welfare" to "well-being". It concludes with suggesting that the "post-materialist" characterization of green politics is very wide of the mark in terms of the range of analyses and policy alternatives greens have put forward, from health, education and drugs to transport. The central and long-standing green concern with lessening socioeconomic inequalities (but without relying on indiscriminate and unsustainable "economic growth") means that in terms of social policy, green politics can be seen as an "environmentalism of the poor", concerned with "materialist" issues.
This article examines the development of tactics in radical environmentalist protests against new... more This article examines the development of tactics in radical environmentalist protests against new roads and other environmental issues in Britain during the 1990s. These tactics depend heavily upon the technical creativity of protesters. Their repertoire has been influenced by British traditions of non-violent direct action and by tactics used previously by radical environmentalists in other countries, notably Australia. This form of non-violent direct action is defined here as manufactured vulnerability because of its reliance on technical devices to prolong vulnerability. Much evidence in this case confirms past studies of how new action forms are developed. Evidence also suggests that development of tactics in radical environmental groups is particularly likely to be influenced by latent networks of activists and cross-national diffusion.
This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 – 2004) on relationships
between ... more This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 – 2004) on relationships between the Environment Agency and special interest groups, a term used here to describe non-governmental non-profit-making groups with a special interest in areas or issues in which the Environment Agency is involved. The report is aimed primarily at staff who work with special interest groups at the local or national level. A statutory objective of the Environment Agency is to develop close and responsive relationships with stakeholders. Much communication and contact with non-institutional stakeholders is with special interest groups. When relationships with these groups become polarised, interactions can absorb significant resources and cause considerable stress to staff. This report therefore seeks to understand the characteristics and roles of special interest groups and their relationships with the wider community and to identify principles and practices that will enable staff to engage with them more effectively. The research process involved a series of semi-structured interviews with both Environment Agency staff and with representatives of special interest groups. The themes that emerged from these interviews were discussed at a series of five internal workshops. This enabled a wide range of staff to provide feedback on the results of the research as it developed and ensured that the emerging themes were relevant to the organisation’s practice. The report explores some of the ways in which special interest groups understand the Environment Agency. It outlines six main areas in which the special interest group’s trustcan be undermined. These are set within the broader context of declining trust in authorities and cover: • perception of a lack of coherence and consistency in the Environment Agency’s remit; • perceptions of the degree of power that the Environment Agency has to influence policy; • differences between special interest group and Environment Agency values; • the limits to interpersonal trust; • perceptions of the Environment Agency’s relationships with industry; and • belief that internal fractures can undermine activities. The research shows that while the Environment Agency needs to communicate well with special interest groups, this may not be sufficient for good relationships. Special interest groups are communicating and networking with each other in new ways and the implications of this need to be understood. There are a number of barriers to staff developing better relationships with special interest groups: • special interest groups may be seen as not representative of the broader public; • the scientific expertise of special interest groups may be questioned; and • special interest groups may be seen as NIMBY (‘Not In My Back Yard’)
... The oil company are trying to rebrand themselves as a cleaner, greener company, whilst their ... more ... The oil company are trying to rebrand themselves as a cleaner, greener company, whilst their Tangguh gas project in West Papua threatens to destroy a huge area of forest and the life of tribal peoples living in seven villages. ...
In the second week of September 2000 networks of farmers and hauliers protesting against high fue... more In the second week of September 2000 networks of farmers and hauliers protesting against high fuel prices launched a series of pickets of fuel depots in the UK which stopped most distribution of petrol within a few days. This was part of a wave of similar protests across ...
This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 2004) on relationships between ... more This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 2004) on relationships between the Environment Agency and special interest groups, a term used here to describe non-governmental non-profit-making groups with a special interest in areas or issues in which the ...
The green movement has posed some tough questions for traditional justifications of democracy. Sh... more The green movement has posed some tough questions for traditional justifications of democracy. Should the natural world have rights? Can we take account of the interests of future generations? But questions have also been asked of the greens. Could their idealism undermine democracy? Can greens be effective democrats? In this book some of the leading writers on green political thought analyze these questions, examining the discourse of green movements concerning democracy, the status of democracy within green political thought and the political institutions that might be necessary to ensure democracy in a sustainable society.
Tilly's famous claim that 'Britain created the social movement' (Tilly 1982) might lead readers t... more Tilly's famous claim that 'Britain created the social movement' (Tilly 1982) might lead readers to assume that scholarship on social movements would be firmly established as a central field of British social science. That is not the case. Or, rather, it is not the case in relation to the dominant approach to studying social movements as it has developed across North America and Europe in recent decades, anchored as it now is around the study of contentious politics, networks, framing and, latterly, emotions. Britain has, of course, produced some of this kind of social movement scholarship, as we will show, but British scholarship on social movements also has a distinctive texture and tradition, born out of the specific cultural, political and academic contexts in which the study of social movements emerged in Britain from the late 1950s, and of the subsequent development of relationships between British social movements and the study of social movements. Therefore in this chapter we first survey the emergence of social movements and the varieties of scholarship that have developed since they became a focus of interest in the social and human sciences in the 1960s. An underlying theme within these various approaches is the question of national particularity. In parallel to the catalysing effects on the study of social movements of the US civil rights and anti-Vietnam War movements and the post-1968 movements in many other Western European countries, the development of social movement scholarship in Britain has been profoundly marked by the specific contours of British movement brought to you by CORE View metadata, citation and similar papers at core.ac.uk
The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in... more The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in March 2019. Through a school strike, a new generation has been galvanized, representing a historical turn in climate activism. A team of social scientists from universities across Europe organized a survey of the global FFF strike events on March 15. The team surveyed protesters in 13 cities in nine European countries using the same research design to collect data, following the well-established protest survey methodology used previously in the "Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation" (CCC) project.
Investigating the recent direct action campaigns against genetically modified crops in France and... more Investigating the recent direct action campaigns against genetically modified crops in France and the United Kingdom, the authors set out to understand how contrasting judicial systems and cultures affect the way that activists choose to commit ostensibly illegal actions and how they negotiate the trade-offs between effectiveness and public accountability. The authors find evidence that prosecution outcomes across different judicial systems are consistent and relatively predictable and consequently argue that the concept of a “judicial opportunity structure” is useful for developing scholars’ understanding of social movement trajectories. The authors also find that these differential judicial opportunities cannot adequately account for the tactical choices made by activists with respect to the staging of covert or overt direct action; rather, explanations of tactical choice are better accounted for by movement ideas, cultures, and traditions.
Global Matters for Non-Governmental Public Action, 2012
As the politics of the environment have become increasingly intertwined with issues of social jus... more As the politics of the environment have become increasingly intertwined with issues of social justice, globalisation and development, environmental groups and organisations have broadened their agendas, and have sought to strengthen ties with allies in other countries, often crossing the North-South divide. The well-developed national movements in the North and the fact that many environmental issues are transnational make this instance of domestic-global political linkage in movement politics especially intriguing. In general, transnational networking is regarded as empowering groups in the South through the transfer of skills and resources from wealthier Northern groups, but this cross-boundary movement can also be invasive of local communities and agendas. Local agendas may be displaced by Northern cross-boundary ‘green traders’, who can be regarded as a kind of elite in themselves, at least in their relationships with Southern environmentalism (Baviskar 1995). This chapter aims to assess these relationships between Southern and Northern environmental groups within just one of these organisations: the Friends of the Earth International (FOEI) federation.
The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in... more The #FridaysForFuture climate protests mobilized more than 1.6 million people around the globe in March 2019. Through a school strike, a new generation has been galvanized, representing a historical turn in climate activism. This wave of climate protest mobilization is unique in its tactics, global scope and appeal to teenage school students. Media coverage of these protests and high-level national and international political meetings involving the movement’s icon, Greta Thunberg, illustrate a level of global attention that no previous youth movement has ever received. A team of social scientists from universities across Europe1 organized a survey of the global FFF strike events on March 15. The team surveyed protesters in 13 cities in nine European countries using the same research design to collect data, following the well-established protest survey methodology used previously in the “Caught in the Act of Protest: Contextualizing Contestation” (CCC) project.
Breaking Down the State: Protesters Engaged, eds Duyvendak, J.W. & Jasper, J., 2015
JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, a... more JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected].
A NEW CLIMATE MOVEMENT? Extinction Rebellion's Activists' In Profile, 2020
Extinction Rebellion set out to mobilise a new generation of activists. As our data shows, they h... more Extinction Rebellion set out to mobilise a new generation of activists. As our data shows, they have in part succeeded: participants in Extinction Rebellion’s two major actions in London in 2019 had notably little prior experience of protest action, and we encountered many first- time activists. At the same time, however, our socio-demographic profile of XR’s activists in the UK reveals a broadly familiar kind of environmentalist: XR’s activists are typically highly-educated and middle- class (and though our survey did not explicitly ask this, white); they identify politically on the Left; and they consciously adopt multiple pro- environmental behaviours in the course of their everyday lives. XR’s strength has been to create a new public agency amongst people who are not ‘natural’ protesters, and perhaps even less so natural law-breakers, but who were already persuaded of the rightness of the climate cause, and frustrated with the inability of both ‘politics as usual’ and lifestyle environmentalism to bring about the kind of transformative political change that the climate emergency demands. Mobilising this group enabled XR to significantly expand the numbers of people willing to engage in environmental direct action, broadening its age profile, and bringing non-violent direct action on climate change into the centre of political life in the UK. The report comes with an Afterword from Sian Vaughan, a first-time Extinction Rebellion activist.
The Fundi-Realo controversy in European green parties stems from unresolved ambiguities in their ... more The Fundi-Realo controversy in European green parties stems from unresolved ambiguities in their ideology and strategy. The problem for the green parties is that the very areas that are most ambiguous, such as the balance between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary politics and the plurality of social movement issues, are the strongest basis of their claim to have developed an innovatory politics. Their common radical democratic ideology produces different issues and debates in each of the four parties examined here and this suggests that national ideological traditions, as well as institutional variables, are important for a comparative explanation of the nature of Fundi-Realo conflicts.
At the beginning of the 1990s France was one of the few electoral success stories for green parti... more At the beginning of the 1990s France was one of the few electoral success stories for green parties. Whilst elsewhere the green vote seemed to have stabilised as a minor party vote, in France greens began to surpass the ten per cent barrier and threaten the major parties. By ...
The central aim of this paper is to show how different types of green movement respond to questio... more The central aim of this paper is to show how different types of green movement respond to questions of social policy. An important factor in this is a difference in attitudes to the state between more anarchistic greens and those greens that are prepared to accept a permanent and/or strategic role for the state. The paper is divided into two parts. In part one, after defining the green movement, it outlines how different green social movements from local groups, direct action protestors, established environmental groups and green political parties, have developed analyses, responses and alternatives to social policy issues. Part two of the paper looks at some of the ideological/ theoretical debates within green politics with regard to social policy, with particular regard to the role of the state. It goes on to look at some of the ways in which European green parties have viewed social policy, and at proposals they have advanced for moving the aim of social policy from "welfare" to "well-being". It concludes with suggesting that the "post-materialist" characterization of green politics is very wide of the mark in terms of the range of analyses and policy alternatives greens have put forward, from health, education and drugs to transport. The central and long-standing green concern with lessening socioeconomic inequalities (but without relying on indiscriminate and unsustainable "economic growth") means that in terms of social policy, green politics can be seen as an "environmentalism of the poor", concerned with "materialist" issues.
This article examines the development of tactics in radical environmentalist protests against new... more This article examines the development of tactics in radical environmentalist protests against new roads and other environmental issues in Britain during the 1990s. These tactics depend heavily upon the technical creativity of protesters. Their repertoire has been influenced by British traditions of non-violent direct action and by tactics used previously by radical environmentalists in other countries, notably Australia. This form of non-violent direct action is defined here as manufactured vulnerability because of its reliance on technical devices to prolong vulnerability. Much evidence in this case confirms past studies of how new action forms are developed. Evidence also suggests that development of tactics in radical environmental groups is particularly likely to be influenced by latent networks of activists and cross-national diffusion.
This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 – 2004) on relationships
between ... more This report describes research carried out over two years (2002 – 2004) on relationships between the Environment Agency and special interest groups, a term used here to describe non-governmental non-profit-making groups with a special interest in areas or issues in which the Environment Agency is involved. The report is aimed primarily at staff who work with special interest groups at the local or national level. A statutory objective of the Environment Agency is to develop close and responsive relationships with stakeholders. Much communication and contact with non-institutional stakeholders is with special interest groups. When relationships with these groups become polarised, interactions can absorb significant resources and cause considerable stress to staff. This report therefore seeks to understand the characteristics and roles of special interest groups and their relationships with the wider community and to identify principles and practices that will enable staff to engage with them more effectively. The research process involved a series of semi-structured interviews with both Environment Agency staff and with representatives of special interest groups. The themes that emerged from these interviews were discussed at a series of five internal workshops. This enabled a wide range of staff to provide feedback on the results of the research as it developed and ensured that the emerging themes were relevant to the organisation’s practice. The report explores some of the ways in which special interest groups understand the Environment Agency. It outlines six main areas in which the special interest group’s trustcan be undermined. These are set within the broader context of declining trust in authorities and cover: • perception of a lack of coherence and consistency in the Environment Agency’s remit; • perceptions of the degree of power that the Environment Agency has to influence policy; • differences between special interest group and Environment Agency values; • the limits to interpersonal trust; • perceptions of the Environment Agency’s relationships with industry; and • belief that internal fractures can undermine activities. The research shows that while the Environment Agency needs to communicate well with special interest groups, this may not be sufficient for good relationships. Special interest groups are communicating and networking with each other in new ways and the implications of this need to be understood. There are a number of barriers to staff developing better relationships with special interest groups: • special interest groups may be seen as not representative of the broader public; • the scientific expertise of special interest groups may be questioned; and • special interest groups may be seen as NIMBY (‘Not In My Back Yard’)
... The oil company are trying to rebrand themselves as a cleaner, greener company, whilst their ... more ... The oil company are trying to rebrand themselves as a cleaner, greener company, whilst their Tangguh gas project in West Papua threatens to destroy a huge area of forest and the life of tribal peoples living in seven villages. ...
In the second week of September 2000 networks of farmers and hauliers protesting against high fue... more In the second week of September 2000 networks of farmers and hauliers protesting against high fuel prices launched a series of pickets of fuel depots in the UK which stopped most distribution of petrol within a few days. This was part of a wave of similar protests across ...
In this chapter we analyze cases where social movement activists are prosecuted in the courts for... more In this chapter we analyze cases where social movement activists are prosecuted in the courts for protest actions. The courthouse is a significant arena for social movement strategy, a symbolic site for the arbitration of collective disputes, the legitimization of political action, and the production of social meaning; the court is “one of society’s most sacred institutions since its role in defining, interpreting and enforcing the law puts it in close proximity to the moral basis of society” (Antonio, 1972, p.291-2). The outcomes of trials depend on the organization of the criminal justice system but also the response of multiple other players, inside and outside the court, including social movements.
In common with the other chapters in this volume, our argument here is about “breaking down the state”, about thinking through the relationships of power and agency which define the interactions between state and non-state players. If the state is, in the classic definition offered by Stepan, “the continuous administrative, legal, bureaucratic and coercive systems that attempt not only to structure relationships between civil society and public authority in a polity but also to structure many crucial relationships within civil society as well” (in Skocpol, 1985, p.7), our goal here is to contribute to understanding these relationships by focusing on the legal-judicial systems which uphold the social order, and the institutions which embody the state’s coercive power to maintain these systems. In so doing, we seek to go beyond conceptualizations of state-movement relationships which might cast criminal trials merely as “state repression”, setting out the architecture of the court as an arena for political interaction and tactical choice, identifying the players who act within it, and arguing that more attention be given to the courts in analyses of social movement protest action.
Pre-publication draft of 'Environmentalism, Resistance and Solidarity: the Politics of Friends of the Earth International', Oct 2013
In the first detailed study of how a major environmental NGO works transnationally, Brian Doherty... more In the first detailed study of how a major environmental NGO works transnationally, Brian Doherty and Timothy Doyle examine the relationships between the 74 national organizations of Friends of the Earth International. Drawing from a rich mix of survey data, interviews, archival sources and access to internal meetings, they show how FoEI has developed a distinctive international environmentalism, which allows for the differences in context between regions and across the North-South divide. Following the expansion of FoEI into the global South, the challenges it then faced over questions of ideology, organization and campaign strategy are examined over a twenty year period. The book demonstrates the development of an FoEI tradition of solidarity which accounts for its ability to overcome internal crises and pursue joint campaigns despite conflicting understandings of politics between its national organizations.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form ... more All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without ...
(From 2001) The 'Western' green movement has grown rapidly in the last three decades: green minis... more (From 2001) The 'Western' green movement has grown rapidly in the last three decades: green ministers are in government in several European countries, Greenpeace has millions of paying supporters, and green direct action against roads, GM crops, the WTO and neo-liberalism, have become ubiquitous.
The author argues that 'greens' share a common ideological framework but are divided over strategy. Using social movement theory and drawing on research from many countries, he shows how the green movement became more differentiated over time, as groups had to face the task of deciding what kind of action was appropriate.
In the breadth of its coverage and its novel focus on the relationship between green ideas and action, this book makes an important contribution to the understanding of green politics.
Tilly's famous claim that 'Britain created the social movement' (Tilly 1982) might lead readers t... more Tilly's famous claim that 'Britain created the social movement' (Tilly 1982) might lead readers to assume that scholarship on social movements would be firmly established as a central field of British social science. That is not the case. Or, rather, it is not the case in relation to the dominant approach to studying social movements as it has developed across North America and Europe in recent decades, anchored as it now is around the study of contentious politics, networks, framing and, latterly, emotions. Britain has, of course, produced some of this kind of social movement scholarship, as we will show, but British scholarship on social movements also has a distinctive texture and tradition, born out of the specific cultural, political and academic contexts in which the study of social movements emerged in Britain from the late 1950s, and of the subsequent development of relationships between British social movements and the study of social movements. Therefore in this chapter we first survey the emergence of social movements and the varieties of scholarship that have developed since they became a focus of interest in the social and human sciences in the 1960s. An underlying theme within these various approaches is the question of national particularity. In parallel to the catalysing effects on the study of social movements of the US civil rights and anti–Vietnam War movements and the post-1968 movements in many other Western European countries, the development of social movement scholarship in Britain has been profoundly marked by the specific contours of British movement
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XR’s strength has been to create a new public agency amongst people who are not ‘natural’ protesters, and perhaps even less so natural law-breakers, but who were already persuaded of the rightness of the climate cause, and frustrated with the inability of both ‘politics as usual’ and lifestyle environmentalism to bring about the kind of transformative political change that the climate emergency demands. Mobilising this group enabled XR to significantly expand the numbers of people willing to engage in environmental direct action, broadening its age profile, and bringing non-violent direct action on climate change into the centre of political life in the UK.
The report comes with an Afterword from Sian Vaughan, a first-time Extinction Rebellion activist.
between the Environment Agency and special interest groups, a term used here to
describe non-governmental non-profit-making groups with a special interest in areas or
issues in which the Environment Agency is involved. The report is aimed primarily at staff
who work with special interest groups at the local or national level.
A statutory objective of the Environment Agency is to develop close and responsive
relationships with stakeholders. Much communication and contact with non-institutional
stakeholders is with special interest groups. When relationships with these groups become
polarised, interactions can absorb significant resources and cause considerable stress to
staff. This report therefore seeks to understand the characteristics and roles of special
interest groups and their relationships with the wider community and to identify principles
and practices that will enable staff to engage with them more effectively.
The research process involved a series of semi-structured interviews with both
Environment Agency staff and with representatives of special interest groups. The themes
that emerged from these interviews were discussed at a series of five internal workshops.
This enabled a wide range of staff to provide feedback on the results of the research as it
developed and ensured that the emerging themes were relevant to the organisation’s
practice.
The report explores some of the ways in which special interest groups understand the
Environment Agency. It outlines six main areas in which the special interest group’s trustcan be undermined. These are set within the broader context of declining trust in
authorities and cover:
• perception of a lack of coherence and consistency in the Environment Agency’s remit;
• perceptions of the degree of power that the Environment Agency has to influence
policy;
• differences between special interest group and Environment Agency values;
• the limits to interpersonal trust;
• perceptions of the Environment Agency’s relationships with industry; and
• belief that internal fractures can undermine activities.
The research shows that while the Environment Agency needs to communicate well with
special interest groups, this may not be sufficient for good relationships. Special interest
groups are communicating and networking with each other in new ways and the
implications of this need to be understood.
There are a number of barriers to staff developing better relationships with special interest
groups:
• special interest groups may be seen as not representative of the broader public;
• the scientific expertise of special interest groups may be questioned; and
• special interest groups may be seen as NIMBY (‘Not In My Back Yard’)
XR’s strength has been to create a new public agency amongst people who are not ‘natural’ protesters, and perhaps even less so natural law-breakers, but who were already persuaded of the rightness of the climate cause, and frustrated with the inability of both ‘politics as usual’ and lifestyle environmentalism to bring about the kind of transformative political change that the climate emergency demands. Mobilising this group enabled XR to significantly expand the numbers of people willing to engage in environmental direct action, broadening its age profile, and bringing non-violent direct action on climate change into the centre of political life in the UK.
The report comes with an Afterword from Sian Vaughan, a first-time Extinction Rebellion activist.
between the Environment Agency and special interest groups, a term used here to
describe non-governmental non-profit-making groups with a special interest in areas or
issues in which the Environment Agency is involved. The report is aimed primarily at staff
who work with special interest groups at the local or national level.
A statutory objective of the Environment Agency is to develop close and responsive
relationships with stakeholders. Much communication and contact with non-institutional
stakeholders is with special interest groups. When relationships with these groups become
polarised, interactions can absorb significant resources and cause considerable stress to
staff. This report therefore seeks to understand the characteristics and roles of special
interest groups and their relationships with the wider community and to identify principles
and practices that will enable staff to engage with them more effectively.
The research process involved a series of semi-structured interviews with both
Environment Agency staff and with representatives of special interest groups. The themes
that emerged from these interviews were discussed at a series of five internal workshops.
This enabled a wide range of staff to provide feedback on the results of the research as it
developed and ensured that the emerging themes were relevant to the organisation’s
practice.
The report explores some of the ways in which special interest groups understand the
Environment Agency. It outlines six main areas in which the special interest group’s trustcan be undermined. These are set within the broader context of declining trust in
authorities and cover:
• perception of a lack of coherence and consistency in the Environment Agency’s remit;
• perceptions of the degree of power that the Environment Agency has to influence
policy;
• differences between special interest group and Environment Agency values;
• the limits to interpersonal trust;
• perceptions of the Environment Agency’s relationships with industry; and
• belief that internal fractures can undermine activities.
The research shows that while the Environment Agency needs to communicate well with
special interest groups, this may not be sufficient for good relationships. Special interest
groups are communicating and networking with each other in new ways and the
implications of this need to be understood.
There are a number of barriers to staff developing better relationships with special interest
groups:
• special interest groups may be seen as not representative of the broader public;
• the scientific expertise of special interest groups may be questioned; and
• special interest groups may be seen as NIMBY (‘Not In My Back Yard’)
In common with the other chapters in this volume, our argument here is about “breaking down the state”, about thinking through the relationships of power and agency which define the interactions between state and non-state players. If the state is, in the classic definition offered by Stepan, “the continuous administrative, legal, bureaucratic and coercive systems that attempt not only to structure relationships between civil society and public authority in a polity but also to structure many crucial relationships within civil society as well” (in Skocpol, 1985, p.7), our goal here is to contribute to understanding these relationships by focusing on the legal-judicial systems which uphold the social order, and the institutions which embody the state’s coercive power to maintain these systems. In so doing, we seek to go beyond conceptualizations of state-movement relationships which might cast criminal trials merely as “state repression”, setting out the architecture of the court as an arena for political interaction and tactical choice, identifying the players who act within it, and arguing that more attention be given to the courts in analyses of social movement protest action.
The author argues that 'greens' share a common ideological framework but are divided over strategy. Using social movement theory and drawing on research from many countries, he shows how the green movement became more differentiated over time, as groups had to face the task of deciding what kind of action was appropriate.
In the breadth of its coverage and its novel focus on the relationship between green ideas and action, this book makes an important contribution to the understanding of green politics.