Fridays for Future: A failure of Laclau/Mouffe’s chains of equivalence?

The struggle for political hegemony has been a meaningful matter in the context of political responses towards societal transformations. As one of their key concepts that help to achieve hegemony, Chantal Mouffe and Ernesto Laclau introduce chains of equivalence, formed when political actors connect several, usually non-related policy issues to overthrow the existing hegemony in an agonistic struggle, leading to policy action and societal transformation. But what comes after the formation of chains of equivalence and how is their success determined? The discourse around climate change serves as a great example to test the theoretical idea of chains of equivalence which Mouffe already addresses in her latest work (Mouffe 2022). More concretely, Mouffe’s tactics can be observed in German Fridays for Future (FFF): FFF likely gained success with its initial argumentation, connecting climate protection to generational justice, serving as a first chain of equivalence (Tremmel 2023). As the movement grew, it stressed the consequences of European policy decisions and its implications on a larger scale: The links in argumentation made between climate protection and issues such as feminism/sexism, colonialism and racism, calling for an “intersectional” struggle, can be understood as several additional chains of equivalence (Fridays for Future 2022; Fridays for Future/Nene Opoku 2021). The group made further efforts when speaking out about the war in Ukraine and most recently, in Gaza, forming other chains of equivalence to colonialism and human rights struggles, as Greta Thunberg postulated: “No climate justice on occupied land.” (Fridays for Future Germany 2022; Fridays for Future Berlin 2023; Zeit Online 2023). However, regarding the latest political developments in Germany, where global FFF is being increasingly criticized (not only) due to its positioning on Gaza, this chain of equivalence seems to be brittle, questioning the movement’s capacity to produce proper policy responses. This contribution aims to look into this divergence, testing Mouffe’s theoretical assumptions of her latest work, taking into account the issue of climate protection as a perfect empty signifier (Laclau/Mouffe 1985): It has no fixed meaning and allows all types of criticism and demands, ranging from concerns of the economic situation to the survival of humankind. Discussing the chains of equivalence in detail, this paper intends to explore what determines the breakdown of a chain. The observations above lead to the following hypothesis: Regarding the simultaneous loss of traction as well as positive media reporting on FFF, these developments might show that FFF has overstepped its issue area, stretching its chains of equivalence – once a reason for its success – too far. This raises the assumption that Laclau/Mouffe’s strategy – at least in this case – is not fully successful, or that it is only successful to a certain extent. This contribution aims to assess the underlying reasons for this lack of success as well as the failure of climate protection as empty signifier and discuss whether it is a German phenomenon.