The rise of environmentalism has been one of the more remarkable developments in the politics of western societies in recent decades. However, as environmental awareness has become more generalized, the forms of expression of environmental concern have changed. Established environmental movement organizations have become embedded in policy networks, but, in some countries, there has been a resurgence of environmental radicalism. New groups, adopting innovative tactics, have mounted spectacular and disruptive protests.
These developments pose interesting questions for social scientists and policy-makers. Has the institutionalization of established environmental organizations demobilized their supporters and reduced them to a passive, credit-card waving 'conscience' constituency? Has direct participation in environmental protest become the specialized activity of smaller numbers of people? Has there been a decline in the total volume of environmental protest, or is it merely that the forms of protest have changed? Have the protest repertoires of established groups moderated over time, or have they been stimulated by the emergence of more radical groups to adopt more challenging tactics? Has environmental protest become more confrontational? Do protests employ different repertoires of action according to the issues at stake? How does the incidence of protest vary over time and from one country to another? Is there evidence of a Europeanization of either the issues or the forms of environmental protest?
These are some of the questions this volume addresses. Based upon an analysis of the protest events reported in one quality newspaper in each of eight countries during the ten years 1988 to 1997, this is the first systematically comparative study of environmental protest in a representative cross-section of EU member states. It breaks entirely new ground in the study of environmental politics in Europe and is a major contribution to the study of protest events.
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Consistently intelligent... this is a thoughtful and useful study to scholars outside of Europe as well as those within... this book allows scholars and citizens on both sides of the Atlantic to better understand the political dynamics that lead towards environmental policy progress. -- 'Environmental Values'
Christopher Rootes is Professor of Environmental Politics and Political Sociology, and Director of the Centre for the Study of Social and Political Movements, at the University of Kent, Canterbury, UK. He is editor-in-chief of the journal Environmental Politics, and a member of the editorial boards of Mobilization and Social Movement Studies. As well as publishing many articles and chapters on social movement theory, student and environmental movements, protest, Green parties, the politics of climate change, and the global justice movement, he has recently edited: ‘The environmental movement in Great Britain’, in Environmental Movements around the World (T Doyle and S MacGregor, eds, 2014); ‘Framing “the climate issue”: patterns of participation and prognostic frames among climate summit protesters’ (with M Wahlström and M Wennerhag, Global Environmental Politics 2013); and ‘From local conflict to national issue: when and how environmental campaigns succeed in transcending the local’ (Environmental Politics 2013).
Iñaki Barcena is a Senior Lecturer and Researcher in the Department of Political Science and Administration at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao.
Mario Diani is Professor of Sociology at the University of Trento, Visiting Research Professor in the Department of Government of the University of Strathclyde.
Olivier Fillieule is Professor in political sociology and member of the CRAPUL Research Center on Political Action at the University of Lausanne. He is also Research Professor at CNRS, Paris I Sorbonne (on leave). His work focuses on social movement and political activism, anti HIV/AIDS and global movements. He has recently published (with D. Tartakowsky) La manifestation (Presses de Sciences Po 2012) and co-edited (with E. Agrikoliansky and I. Sommier) Penser les mouvements sociaux: Conflits sociaux et contestations dans les sociétés contemporaines (La Découverte 2010), (with L. Mathieu and C. Péchu) Dictionnaire des mouvements sociaux (Presses de Sciences Po 2009), (with P. Roux) Le sexe du militantisme (Presses de Sciences Po 2008), (with E. Agrikoliansky and I. Sommier) Généalogie du mouvement altermondialiste en Europe (Karthala 2008), (with P. Favre and F. Jobard) L’atelier du politiste (La Découverte 2007) and (with D. Della Porta) Police et manifestants. Maintien de l’ordre et gestion des conflits (Presses de Sciences Po 2006).
Francesca Forno is Assistant Professor in Sociology at the University of Bergamo, Italy.
Eunate Guarrotxena is a political sociologist was a member of the TEA project team at the University of the Basque Country.
Pedro Ibarra is a Professor in the Department of Political Science and Administration at the University of the Basque Country, Bilbao.
Andrew Jamison is Professor of Technology and Society at Aalborg University, Denmark.
Manuel Jiménez is Professor of Sociology at the University Pablo de Olavide of Seville, and a member of the Centre for Advanced Study in the Social Sciences, Juan March Institute (Madrid) and the Institute for Advanced Social Studies of Andalusia (IESA-CSIC).
Maria Kousis (PhD, University of Michigan, 1984) is Professor of Sociology (Development and the Environment) at the University of Crete. She has been Chair of the Sociology Department (2002–6), Director of the MSc and PhD programme (2004–8) and Vice-Director of the MSc in Bioethics since 2010. She was co-ordinator of the EC DGXII project ‘Grassroots Environmental Action & Sustainable Development in the Southern European Union’ and partner in EC projects including TEA, PAGANINI, and MEDVOICES. Recent publications include Social Aspects of the Crisis in Greece (co-edited with S. Zambarloukou, Pedio Press 2014, in Greek); Contested Mediterranean Spaces (co-edited with T Selwyn and D Clark, Berghahn Books 2011). Her areas of specialisation focus on social change, social movements and contentious politics, environmental politics, bioethics and society and Southern Europe. She is currently partner in the FP7, EC project LIVEWHAT (http://www.livewhat.unige.ch) and co-ordinator of the Greek team in the bi-national project ‘The Greeks, the Germans and the Crisis’ (ggcrisi.edu) (Freie Universität Berlin and University of Crete).
Magnus Ring is completing a PhD on the concept of social movement at Lund University, Sweden.
Jochen Roose is Research Fellow for Sociology at the Free University Berlin.
Dieter Rucht is Professor of Sociology at the Social Science Centre, Berlin (WZB).
Jon Torre is an environmental journalist and was a member of the TEA project team at the University of the Basque Country.
