Paving the Way: The Rise of Direct Action against Road-Building and the Changing Character of British Environmentalism

Abstract

Sustained protests against the building of new roads in Britain since 1992 signal the emergence of a new social movement dimension in British environmentalism. The growth of direct action has occurred outside the existing environmental pressure groups and this more radical green politics has undermined the view that the British state was able to prevent confrontational environmental protest. Small numbers of protesters have been able to make a major impact on the political agenda through a combination of technical ingenuity, tactical astuteness and determination. Models of political opportunity structures have become dominant in explaining the emergence and character of social movements but because they lay too much emphasis on the calculation of costs and benefits by movement actors they are of little help in analysis of this case. Rather, the case of the anti-roads movement suggests that further attention needs to be paid to the identities of the movement's founders in explaining their actions and lends credibility to the (much criticized) claim that new social movements are qualitatively new.