The number of environmental NGOs lobbying the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) has grown dramatically in the past twenty-five years. But how has this growth in size affected the network’s advocacy efforts and strategies of engagement with international organizations like the UNFCCC? In Jennifer Hadden’s Networks in Contention: The Divisive Politics of Climate Change, she traces how a network of NGOs expanded in the years prior to the UNFCCC’s 15th Conference of the Parties (COP-15) at Copenhagen. She shows how this expansion contributed to factionalism within the network, a breakdown of consensus about strategies, and an increase in radical activism among a sub-group of the network. She concludes by illustrating how this increasing radicalism led to a backlash from the UNFCCC, and a loss of institutional access to the international negotiation process for network members.
If contentious activism can result in a loss of access, why would groups in the climate network engage in more radicalism and contention at Copenhagen? If network groups believed that radicalism was the most effective way to press for meaningful change, why did the network not do so before? The network was certainly not always as contentious as it became at COP-15. As Hadden points out, the original core of the network centered on a group known as the Climate Action Network (CAN), which consisted of organizations that had a history of engagement with the UNFCCC and a pattern of “insider” activism. Nevertheless, while some of the radical action came from newcomers to CAN, several older network members became more radical over time. Why did contention spread among the climate network, and what does this mean for climate activism?
Hadden builds on work from political process theorists like Sidney Tarrow (Power in Movement, 2011) and organizational theorists like Aseem Prakash and Mary Kay Gugerty (Advocacy Organizations and Collective Action, 2010). Political process theorists argue that networks engage in contentious politics when access to decision-making is limited, and moderate their activism when access is high. Organizational theorists argue that more established organizations tend to become moderate over time, whereas organizations with “radical ideological orientations” (pp. 5–6) tend to engage in radical politics to satisfy their constituents. While these approaches have been crucial in understanding network behavior, they do not adequately explain change in behavior. Without such an accounting, it is difficult to understand why radical behavior increased at Copenhagen, why some formerly moderate organizations became radical over time, and why those who remained moderate did so. This is where Hadden’s contribution is most important.
Her innovative argument is based on the structure of relations among an organizational network’s members. An organization’s behavior is shaped not just by political opportunity, but also by the strength and quality of its relationship with other network members, and their strategies and actions. This explanation accounts for change more effectively than either political process or organizational theory. If a network changes by adding new radical members, previously moderate organizations that become embedded in relationships with these newcomers will start to adopt their strategies. As important, those who are not embedded in those sorts of relationships will remain moderate. Contentious activism is “contagious” (p. 72).
Hadden elaborates this argument by using an impressive array of multi-method research strategies. First, in the Introduction and in Chapter 1, she explains the networks’ changing size and composition. While the number of organizations accredited at the UNFCCC has been growing since 1995, the number of new members surged prior to 2009 by about 35%, and the number of individuals registered as observers “increased from about 4,000 in 2008 to over 13,000 in 2009” (p. 19). These organizations included those associated with indigenous rights, gender equality, labor, and racial equality movements’ push that saw climate change as relevant to their concerns about poverty and justice. This was due to an increase in media attention due to the reception of the Nobel Peace Prize by the IPCC in 2007, the post-Katrina salience of climate change vulnerability to underlying issues like racial inequality, the “impending expiration of the Kyoto Protocol,” and the need to “finalize [a] new treaty by the time of the 2009 meeting” (p. 19).
In Chapter 1, she also demonstrates that this growth led to increasing heterogeneity in philosophies and tactics among network organizations. Prior to 2009, the network largely described climate change as a “scientific” problem (see, e.g., p. 24 and passim), and framed solutions to climate change in equally technocratic, scientific terms. As the network grew, the newer organizations began reframing climate change as a justice issue.
Chapters 2 and 3 show how these new justice-oriented groups became integrated into the network. Newer members like la Via Campesina formed ties with organizations like Friends of the Earth Europe, and Gender and Climate Change, with which they shared similar ideas about climate and justice. Some established organizations then served as nodes of communication with the rest of the moderate members of CAN. Thus, a formerly close-knit network became divided into different clusters, where comparatively radical organizations communicated with the moderate members of the network largely through intermediaries (see p. 46 and p. 74).
Chapter 2 demonstrates that organizations that adopted a “climate justice” frame changed their approach to governance (p. 58). New groups broke from the moderate members by calling for mechanisms rooted in equity and opposed the previous “neoliberal turn in climate politics” (p. 28). They rejected strategies supported by moderates, by, for example, opposing carbon markets (p. 28); supporting emissions targets rooted in historic and per capita emissions (p. 96); and opposing carbon offset mechanisms (p. 101; also p. 122).
Chapters 4 and 5 demonstrate what effect this had on advocacy. Newer, radical members grew frustrated with what they perceived as morally dubious incrementalism on the part of the moderates. Consensus about messaging and strategies within the network broke down, and civil society participation at Copenhagen became more contentious, and protests more disruptive. Chapter 6 describes the UNFCCC backlash: after protests broke out, the UNFCCC allowed only 90 of over 13,000 registered observers to attend, with entire organizations in the network, including FOE, having their accreditation revoked (pp. 148–149). Yet while this shuttering of access was a setback for network participation, Hadden notes that media articles on climate change after 2009 started using the “climate justice” frame much more frequently (pp. 152–153).
As she points out, the use of contentious activism cannot be predicted simply by looking at political opportunity structures, since radical tactics increased before the UNFCCC began restricting access, not after. Moreover, some of the established members of the climate network became radicalized over time, which indicates that radical activism at time t+1 cannot be explained simply by examining an organization’s character at time t. Instead, moderate organizations became more radical over time if they were more deeply embedded in relationships with radical members. The stronger the relationships with radical members, the more likely, and the more extensive, their radicalization became. Hadden’s quantitative data in Chapter 3 support this, as do the qualitative discussions of changing behavior from formerly moderate members like Gender and Climate Change, which was embedded in relationships with radicals, and Transport and Environment, which was not (p. 86).
Like all good books, this one leaves me with even more questions. The evidence suggests that radicalism is contagious. But why is moderation not equally contagious? If socializing with radical members encourages moderates to become more radical over time, why does it not happen in reverse? Hadden is clear that the majority of the growth in the climate network came as justice-oriented organizations joined en masse after 2006. Is it simply a question of numbers and, if so, does this suggest that moderates leery of radicalism can stack networks with other moderate members, or ensure that new radicals are embedded in relationships with moderates? Or will doing so simply encourage the spread of radicalism more quickly? Or is there something about describing climate as a “justice” issue that makes it harder for radicalized members to change their rhetoric?
Second, Hadden indicates throughout that the “justice” frame represented a break from the “scientific” frame of climate change (see, e.g., p. 3 and passim). However, is this a necessary distinction? It is doubtful that even the most ardently justice-oriented organization is ignorant of, or less concerned by, scientific data showing rising average global temperatures and their effect on the earth’s ecosystems. What seems more likely is that these organizations are using the science of climate change to highlight areas of injustice and inequity in ways that were overlooked by previous forms of climate activism.
As a result, I share Hadden’s agnosticism about the breakdown of consensus in the climate network. One of the main points of contention between the radical climate activists and the moderate members according to Hadden and others (Naomi Klein, This Changes Everything, 2015) is that moderates have been too willing to support mechanisms that do little to address the root causes of climate change in exchange for continued access. For radicals, this may be worse than doing nothing, as moderate members give moral cover to mechanisms like carbon offset markets, which allow polluters to continue to emit GHGs, as long as they purchase “indulgences” elsewhere.
That said, I do not want to minimize the importance of access to climate negotiations. No solution may or may not be better than a bad solution, but being shut out of negotiations certainly makes it substantially more difficult to influence them. Hadden’s book does an excellent job of explaining why that happened at COP-15.
