Brian Doherty

Democracy and green political thought : sustainability, rights and citizenship

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.

Paving the Way: the Rise of Direct Action against Road-building and the Changing Character of British Environmentalism

Sustained protests against the building of new roads in Britain since 1992 signal the emergence of a new social movement dimension in British environmentalism. The growth of direct action has occurred outside the existing environmental pressure groups and this more radical green politics has undermined the view that the British state was able to prevent confrontational environmental protest. Small numbers of protesters have been able to make a major impact on the political agenda through a combination of technical ingenuity, tactical astuteness and determination. Models of political opportunity structures have become dominant in explaining the emergence and character of social movements but because they lay too much emphasis on the calculation of costs and benefits by movement actors they are of little help in analysis of this case. Rather, the case of the anti-roads movement suggests that further attention needs to be paid to the identities of the movements founders in explaining their actions and lends credibility to the (much criticized) claim that new social movements are qualitatively new.

Friends of the Earth International: Negotiating a transnational identity

Abstract The aim of this article is to assess the relationships between majority (South) and minority (North) world environmental groups by focusing on one of the largest transnational environmental organisations: Friends of the Earth International (FoEI):1 a federation of autonomous groups from 71 countries (see Appendix). FoEIs federal structure gives more power to southern groups than other transnational environmental organisations and FoEI has taken a relatively radical line on issues of global justice. Nevertheless, there have been arguments over strategy and ideology between northern and southern groups. The article examines how FoEI responded to a crisis in its identity over North–South differences in 2002–4. The trust developed through regular international meetings and a distinctive organisational culture allowed the network to rebuild its solidarity, although without ever fully resolving differences of ideology. It is argued that FoEI will be best able to maintain its North–South representation if it accepts that internal conflicts and debates over core ideological questions are normal for social movements.

The fundi‐realo controversy: An analysis of four European green parties

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.

Environmental direct action in Manchester, Oxford and North Wales: A protest event analysis

Abstract Direct action campaigns against new roads in the UK received much attention, but campaign groups were locally organised and little is known about how they worked. Protests by three local environmental direct action groups in the years 1992–2001 are examined. Their repertoire was confrontational, targeted mainly at business and the state. Most protests were small-scale and most were unreported in either local or national media. In the larger groups, in Manchester and Oxford, most actions were carried out locally and direct action groups worked mainly alone. In the smaller Bangor group, campaigners sometimes needed alliances with less radical groups to campaign effectively, and travelled more to events outside their locality. Environmental direct action groups remain largely autonomous from strategic alliances. Their protests are challenges to the norms underlying political and capitalist institutions rather than calculated attempts to influence government. Evidence that their actions were affecting public debate sustained and revitalised action more than did changes in political opportunities.

Explaining the fuel protests

We describe and analyse the fuel protests in the UK in September and November 2000. We draw on theories of social movements to explain the success of the first of these protests and the failure of the second. We show how the loose, network forms of organisation contributed to the success in September, and the attempts to impose more formal organisations helped to cause the failure in November. We also show how the success of the protests depended on the articulation of the aims of the protesters with dominant social forces in British politics, in particular the oil companies, the police, and the mass media.

Beyond borders: Transnational politics, social movements and modern environmentalisms

Abstract This introduction considers three themes that recur across the various contributions to this collection. The first is the nature of borders and how these have been affected by the increase in transnational collective action and the growth in the power of transnational institutions. The second is the distinction between environmental movements and the social movement forms of environmentalism: meaning that not all forms of environmental movement are social movements. The third is the evidence of the diversity of environmentalisms, which leads us to identify three principal kinds of environmental movement, the post-material movements strongest in the United States and Australia, the post-industrial movements that are strongest in Europe and the post-colonial movements of the South.

Having your day in court: judicial opportunity and tactical choice in Anti-GMO campaigns in France and the United Kingdom

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.

The Greens and Social Policy: Movements, Politics and Practice?

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 defning 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.

Green public spheres and the green governance state: the politics of emancipation and ecological conditionality

Abstract A consistent thread weaves through all the articles in this edition. Each author, in some fashion, reflects upon the dual concepts of a ‘global green public sphere’ and the ‘global governance state’, as they intersect with the politics of environmentalism. Indeed, as is evidenced in the preceding pages, the politics of green concern transmute into a myriad of different collective forms. Despite this diversity of responses found within and between environmental groups, we conclude that most greens cross boundaries in a positive fashion. Through the construction of transnational networks of solidarity, movements become global entities, acting in concert to protect ecosystems and emancipate humans and non-humans from degradation and subjugation and expanding the public sphere of green debate transnationally. In certain instances, however, environmentalism is used as a tool for continued conquest and domination. These instances, although not generally reflective of green movements as a whole, are often writ large due to the relative power, in comparative terms, of the proponents. ‘Environment’, therefore, can be either a symbol for liberation or repression; emancipation or conditionality. It can be used to support democracy or, alternatively, to support authoritarianism; it can be used to attack neoliberalism and corporate-controlled globalisation, and it can be used to support it; it can be used to lionise concepts of ‘the local’, and it can be utilised to denigrate local systems of meaning in a neocolonial fashion.