The transformation of environmental activism: an introduction

By 1990, environmentalism had been institutionalized almost everywhere in western Europe, environmental movement organizations had become substantial and well‐connected operations, and it was widely supposed that environmental movements had been demobilized and incorporated. However, in some countries, during the 1990s, there was a revival of environmental protest that was sometimes markedly more confrontational than that of the 1980s. National experiences differed and this chapter introduces some of those differences and the theories that might explain them. Nevertheless, transnational collaboration increased and it was widely expected that a Europeanization of environmental protest would follow in response to opportunities created by the increased environmental competence of the European Union. The case is made for the use of protest event methodology and newspaper reports to assemble empirical data with which to confront these theories and assumptions systematically.