Bringing issues into social movement theory: How climate change matters for climate movements
Joost de Moor (Science Po, Paris)
In the paper presented, a theory that properly considers the issue at stake in climate activism: climate change is proposed. Seemingly a banal observation, previous analyses have not properly theorized or analyzed how the distinct nature of the problem of climate change may set the climate movement apart from other movements. This is symptomatic of a bigger gap in social movement studies: the nature of problems is typically only superficially considered and hardly theorized. The "problem-centered approach" proposed here considers how problems affect social movements as motivation and context for action, as well as through the introduction of underlying features that set boundary conditions for collective action by tagging along with the salient problem features that initially motivate action. Through the case of climate activism, the problem's spatiality, temporality and complexity is particularly highlighted. By exploring the distinctiveness of seeking to address such a peculiar problem as climate change, Joost de Moor will contribute to our understanding of what makes climate activism (and climate action more generally) so challenging, while improving our theoretical grasp of the place of problems and their ‘nature’ in theories of social movements and collective action more generally.
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Joost de Moor is an Assistant Professor of Political Science at the Center for European Studies and Comparative Politics at Sciences Po. He has published on social movements, political participation and environmental politics in various academic journals, such as Theory and Society, Environmental Politics, Mobilization, Social Movement Studies, Cities, Geoforum and International Journal of Urban and Regional Research. His work studies how political, urban and ecological contexts shape strategies in environmental movements, and particularly, the dilemmas that arise from that. |
Discussants: Amandine Orsini (Saint-Louis) and Henry Maes (ISPOLE)
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