Demanding Policy Change, Taking Direct Action, or Promoting Alternatives: Explaining Differential Participation in the International Climate Change Movement

Over the past ten years, the climate change movement has known a strong diversification of its strategies for mobilizing around UN climate summits (COPs). Especially since the failed Copenhagen summit a central point of debate within the movement has become how actions should relate to the international policy process. Organizers now plan a wide range of actions that potential participants can take part in. While some organizers continue to stage demonstrations that aim to put pressure on negotiators, others have lost faith in the ability of the COP-process to solve the climate crisis and therefore propose alternative strategies, like direct actions against the ‘culprits’ of climate change, and the promotion of concrete alternatives.

This paper asks why those people mobilized by the organizers join some of these actions rather than others, or, abstain. Building on the political opportunity structure (POS) approach, it hypothesizes that the type of action activists choose to join depends on their perception of the availability of particular opportunities. Those joining actions that demand policy change should have a more positive outlook of the COP’s POS than those who abstain or who join the alternative actions.

The paper describes the different strategies that are organized around COP21 and uses survey data to analyze why activists participate. Data is gathered from among the members of the key organizations involved in this international mobilization using a pre- and post-survey method (Klandermans and Oegema, 1987) to include both participants and non-participants and to assure that causality can be assessed. The goal of the paper ultimately is to increase our understanding of what drives participation in international climate change activism, and what can explain the diversification the movement’s repertoire. As such, it also increases our understanding of the emergence of transnational activism, and the effect of political globalization on political participation.