Christopher Rootes

Bio: Christopher Rootes is an academic researcher from University of Kent. The author has contributed to research in topics: Environmental movement & Environmentalism. The author has an hindex of 23, co-authored 90 publications receiving 1712 citations.

Environmental Protest in Western Europe

Abstract: It is frequently claimed that, as a result of the institutionalization of environmentalism in the years following its rapid rise in the 1970s and 1980s, the environmental movement has been demobilized, and that once radical groups have been incorporated into the web of policy‐making and consultation and have moderated their tactics to the point that lobbying and partnerships have displaced protest. Such claims were, however, based on casual observation and anecdote rather than systematic investigation of the incidence of protest, and during the 1990s, in several western European countries, the conventional wisdom was challenged by a resurgence of environmental protest that was sometimes markedly more confrontational than that of the 1980s. To determine whether there had indeed been a decline or deradicalization of protest, protest event analysis was undertaken of the environmental protests reported in one quality newspaper in each of eight countries–Britain, France, Germany, Greece, Italy, Spain, Sweden, and the Basque Country – during the 10 years 1988–97. No universal or monotonic decline of environmental protests was apparent during the decade, with reported protests declining and becoming less confrontational in some countries, but rising and becoming more confrontational in others. Most reported environmental protest was moderate and nondisruptive throughout the decade, and violent action remained rare. It was expected that opportunities created by the increased environmental competence of the European Union would produce a Europeanization of environmental protest, but there was no evidence of any increase in the proportions of protest mobilized on the level of, stimulated by, or targeted at the European Union and its institutions, all of which remained at very low levels in all of the countries. Nor was there evidence of Europeanization of environmental protest in the shape of convergence of national patterns of the incidence of protest. The patterns of the incidence of protest varied considerably and remained nationally idiosyncratic, with considerable cross‐national variations in the issues and the forms of protest tending to persist over time. Protest event methodology encounters problems of selection bias associated with cycles of media attention, and so, in the attempt better to understand these biases and their impact upon the pattern of reported protest, journalists and editors associated with the production of those reports were interviewed. On the basis of a protest event analysis of newspaper reports during a decade in which environmental protest was no longer novel, this investigation concludes that there is little or no evidence of the demobilization of environmentalism, and some that the institutionalization of environmental activism may be self‐limiting.

Explaining differential protest participation: Novices, returners, repeaters, and stalwarts

Abstract: Scholarly work on protest participation has tended to focus on the special characteristics of first-timers and the highly committed, underplaying the significance of those in between. In this article, we fill a lacuna in the literature by refocusing attention on four different types of protesters – novices, returners, repeaters and stalwarts. We test whether these four types of protesters are differentiated by biographical/structural availability and/or psychological/attitudinal engagement. We employ data from protest surveys of six May Day and four climate change demonstrations that took place in seven European countries (2009-2010). Our results suggest that biographic availability distinguishes our four groups, but not straightforwardly as a matter of degree. Few indicators of structural availability distinguish between the groups of protesters, and emotional factors do not distinguish between them at all. Whilst some political engagement factors distinguish between the groups as a matter of degree, others suggest similarity between novices and returners. This confirms the need to avoid treating protesters as a homogenous group and reinforces the importance of assessing the contributions of diverse factors to sustaining ‘protest politics’.

The Green Challenge: The Development of Green Parties in Europe

Abstract: Introduction 1.The Green Challenge, Dick Richardson 2.Germany, E. Gene Frnakland 3. France, Alastair Cole and Brian Doherty 4.Britain, Chris Rootes 5.Belgium, Benoit Rihoux 6.The Netherlands, Gerrit Voerman 7.Sweden, Martin Bennulf 8.Switzerland, Clive H. Church 9.Italy, Martin Rhodes 10.Greece, Nicolas Demertzis 11.Czechoslovakia, Petr Jehlicka and Tomas Kostalecky 12.Environmentalism and Political Competition in the origins and Development of European Green Parties, Chris Rootes

Environmental Movements: Local, National and Global

Abstract: Environmental movements from the local to the global, Christopher Rootes organizational change in western European environmental groups - a framework for analysis, Mario Dinai, Paolo Donati dialectics of institutionalization - the transformation of the environmental movement in Germany, Karl-Werner Brand the German Environmental Movement at a crossroads, Dieter Rucht, Jochen Roose mobilizing Earth first! in Britain, Derek Wall local activism, national organizations and the environmental movement in the United States, JoAnn Carmin networks and mobile arrangements - organizational innovation in the US Environmental Justice Movement, David Schlosberg consolidation through institutionalization? dilemmas of the Spanish Environmental Movement in the 1990s, Manuel Jimenez sustaining local environmental mobilizations - groups, actions and claims in southern Europe, Maria Kousis environmental movements, ecological modernization and political opportunity structures, Hein-Anton van der Heijden power, politics and environmental movements in the Third World, Jeff Haynes NGOs and the global environment facility, Zoe Young The World Trade Organization, social movements and global environmental management, Marc Williams, Lucy Ford acting globally, thinking locally? prospects for a global environmental movement, Christopher Rootes.

Environmental movements: From the local to the global

Abstract: (1999). Environmental movements: From the local to the global. Environmental Politics: Vol. 8, Environmental Movements Local, National and Global, pp. 1-12.

The New Transnational Activism

Abstract: The New Transnational Activism, first published in 2005, shows how even the most prosaic activities can assume broader political meanings when they provide ordinary people with the experience of crossing transnational space. This means that we cannot be satisfied with defining transnational activists through the ways they think. The defining feature of transnationalism in this book is relational, and not cognitive. This emphasis on activism's relational structure means that even as they make transnational claims, transnational activists draw on the resources, the networks, and the opportunities in which they are embedded, and only then - if at all - on more distant transnational links. But we can no more sharply draw a line between domestic and international politics in studying transnational activism than we could ignore local politics in studying its national equivalent. Understanding the processes that link the local, the national and the international is the major undertaking of the book.

The Logic of Connective Action: Digital Media and the Personalization of Contentious Politics

Abstract: From the Arab Spring and los indignados in Spain, to Occupy Wall Street (and beyond), large-scale, sustained protests are using digital media in ways that go beyond sending and receiving messages. ...

The New Field of Sustainable Entrepreneurship: Studying Entrepreneurial Action Linking “What is to be Sustained” with “What is to be Developed”:

Abstract: Informed by the sustainable development and entrepreneurship literatures we offer the following definition: Sustainable entrepreneurship is focused on the preservation of nature, life support, and ...