Effects of Civil Disobedience as Movement Strategy in Climate Conflicts - A Process-Tracing Analysis of Lützerath

Within social movement studies, debates on strategy and outcomes have predominantly focused on movements targeting the state. Much less attention has been paid to how social movements strategically engage with corporate actors across multiple arenas, and how such strategies translate into political and economic outcomes. Using the case of Lützerath, this paper examines civil disobedience as a strategic repertoire in climate conflicts targeting both state and corporate actors. Lützerath was a former village in North Rhine-Westphalia (Germany) that was occupied by climate activists to prevent its demolition by the energy corporation RWE, which sought to expand its coal mine. Drawing on a process-tracing approach informed by the Players-and-Arenas framework, the study analyzes how civil disobedience generated spillover effects by shaping (a) political decision-making around the accelerated coal phase-out in NRW and (b) economic dynamics in the market arena. The analysis combines digital documents, media coverage, and interviews with key stakeholders. An exploratory financial event study further complements this mixed-method design by examining the influence of key protest events on RWE’s share prices. While data collection is ongoing, the paper advances a mechanistic understanding of how civil disobedience strategies can produce political and economic outcomes in state and market arenas, contributing to broader debates on the evolving repertoires of climate activism.