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The main issues addressed in the book are introduced, starting with discussion of the great diversity in the environmental movement, and making the point that the major groups of the movement in the United States, in taking on the role of interest groups in the liberal pluralist model, have excluded and marginalized many positions. The study to be made is described as focusing on two key concerns: how to acknowledge and recognize, rather than deny, diversity in environmentalism; and how to organize that diversity politically in a manner more inclusive than the liberal, or mainstream, environmental model. Different sections of the chapter discuss: the problems with conventional (liberal) pluralism; the democratic potential of the recognition by grassroots environmentalism of different experiences of the same event; the notion of justice embodied in the environmental justice movement – distributional equity (which can be achieved through procedural equity), recognition of the diversity of participants and experiences, and political participation (the demand for more public participation in the development, implementation, and oversight of environmental policy); and pluralism in theory and practice. The final section of the chapter provides a preview and plan of the book.

It is becoming standard for sociologists to preface their books with a brief autobiography. This I have done, emphasizing belief in the potency of politics as the atmosphere of LSE in the 1940s. A strong tradition of empirical sociological enquiry has existed since the ‘invisible college’ of the seventeenth century. But sociology belongs to all human civilization, not only to Britain, which was arguably slow in promoting academic sociology.

Five themes will be elaborated in the following chapters: (1) The consequences of Darwin; (2) the division of ownership of the subject between science and literature; (3) methods in the study of society focussing on the scientific and statistical history of the sample survey; (4) the use of sociology in social policy and its characteristic capture by the Fabians and (5) the institutionalization of academic sociology at LSE before 1950.

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.

The evolution of environmental protest in Britain is considered against the background of the development of the environmental movement and the emergence of the environment as a political issue. 1323 protest events reported in The Guardian during the years 1988–97 are analysed to explore the varying incidence, issues, forms and organizational affiliations of protest. In a decade in which environmentalism was widely supposed to have been institutionalized and domesticated, the evidence reveals an extraordinary surge of increasingly confrontational but generally non‐violent protest, especially against roads and for animal rights. In terms of issues, forms, networks, and organizations, animal welfare appears quite distinct from and scarcely linked to the broader environmental movement. The varying incidence and changing character of protest is explained chiefly in terms of changing political opportunities, but also as a legacy of a cycle of protest that began with the campaign against the poll tax.

The incidence of environmental protest in France is examined by means of an analysis of all the environmental protest events reported in Le Monde during the years 1988–97. The relatively low level of protests reported is partly explained by the systematic bias of Le Monde toward institutional politics and formal political actors, as well as by its tendency to neglect local and regional associations and events. Nevertheless, the impression remains that environmental protest in France was relatively subdued during the decade, and explanations are offered in terms of the tendency of environmentalism in France to become mobilized into formal politics via Green parties, and to have become institutionalized at local and regional levels through partnerships with decentralized governmental agencies. The disastrous defeat of the anti‐nuclear movement of the 1970s appears to have depressed levels of national environmental protest in subsequent years.

The incidence of environmental protest in Germany and Berlin is examined by means of an analysis of all the environmental protest events reported in die Tageszeitung during the years 1988–97. Although nationally reported protest declined in the early 1990s, it rebounded strongly in the mid‐1990s and became relatively more confrontational than previously. Strikingly, over half of all environmental protests were associated with nuclear energy, and the revival of protest is principally associated with the controversy over the transportation of nuclear waste. The broad picture of stability of protest over the decade is explained by the solid organizational infrastructure for protest provided by supposedly institutionalized environmental associations. German unification apart, the continuity of political structures and of environmental and nuclear policies during the decade also tended to produce continuity in the issues and incidence of protest.

This chapter analyses the evolution of Italian environmentalism in the decade following the successful anti‐nuclear referendum of 1987. Although the number of national protests contracted over the decade, the overall presence of environmental organizations in the national media and in local protest was actually stable if not on the rise. Altogether, Italian environmentalism only partially fits the model of a movement engaged in sustained, large‐scale collective challenges to authorities. Especially at the national level, environmental action emerges rather as action promoted by a set of public interest groups, mostly institutionalized in their forms of action, and whose control over the issues is less and less challenged by other political actors such as parties or economic interest groups.

Environmental protest in the Basque Country has been distinguished by its intensity and its frequency as well as by its association with the cause of Basque nationalism. To analyse the transformation of environmental protest in the Basque Country during a decade (198897), in the course of which environmental concerns became increasingly autonomous of the national question and instead became more embedded in the struggles of local communities to preserve their quality of life, we examined reports of environmental protest published in the newspaper EGIN. The majority of ecological organizations, while they appear to have distanced themselves from the protest‐oriented and anti‐institutional scenario and discursive frame of radical Basque nationalism, have not embarked on a determined process of institutionalization. Instead, they seem to have found a new ecological space, ’eco‐localism’, from which to continue their work. In this respect, it would seem that the movement is following the famous slogan ’Think globally, act locally.’

The incidence of environmental protest in Sweden is examined by means of an analysis of environmental protest events reported in Dagens Nyheter during the years 1988–97. Although nationally reported protest declined in the early years of the decade, it stabilized thereafter. Given changes in the newspaper, its declining interest in protest, and increasing interest in ‘green business’, it is likely that the actual incidence of protest is understated by this source. Nevertheless, it appears that protests around urban issues declined steadily whereas those concerning animal rights increased, with a modest number of violent protests mainly associated with the latter. Otherwise, environmental protest in Sweden appears to have remained relatively subdued and moderate, as befits a country where environmentalism has been unusually pervasively incorporated.

Despite the institutionalization of environmentalism, it appears that there was no universal or monotonic decline of environmental protests during the decade 1988–97. Patterns of the incidence of protest varied considerably and remained nationally idiosyncratic, with protest appearing to decline and become less confrontational in Greece, whereas it rose and became more confrontational in Britain, and declined only to revive sharply in Germany, Spain, and Italy. Considerable cross‐national variations in the issues and the forms of protest tended to persist over time. There was no evidence of any Europeanization of environmental protest in the shape of either a convergence of national patterns or a rise of protest mobilized on the level of, stimulated by, or targeted at the European Union and its institutions. On the basis of a protest event analysis of newspaper reports during a decade in which environmental protest was no longer novel, there is little or no evidence of the demobilization of environmentalism during the decade, and some that the institutionalization of environmental activism may be self‐limiting.

Through the examination of Eco‐feminism and Deep Ecology, it is demonstrated how many in these two schools have misused the concept of ‘environment’ and caused a confusion that has been detrimental to the social and political status of environmental philosophy. It is argued that when putting forward political goals that are legitimate and justified, but not ‘environmental’ at all, they have ‘conceptually exploited’ the ‘environment’. The reasons for environmental philosophy's lack of popularity among politicians and activists are (1) that it fails to distinguish between meta‐ethics and political theory, (2) that it identifies goals that do not necessarily appeal to environmentalists, and (3) that it overextended the use of its main concepts and caused confusion and vagueness.

The experience of environmentalism in the US, UK, Germany, and Norway is introduced in detail, with special reference to the relationship between the state and the movement. The history of each country in the modern environmental era is sketched. The movement took a very different form in each country. The oppositional public sphere confronting the state in Germany looks very different from the well‐behaved set of interest groups in the US or the Norwegian organizations that are tightly integrated into government. The shape and fortunes of environmentalism are heavily influenced by the state's orientation to societal interests, which can feature inclusion or exclusion, and be passive or active.

Sometimes the inclusion of the environmental movement in the state that has occurred has been genuine, and sometimes it has involved co‐option, i.e. access without real influence. We argue that inclusion can be genuine when the movement's defining interest can be attached to one of the core state imperatives; this explains why the US alone could prove such an environmental success story around 1970. Later in the 1970s, energy crisis meant that environmentalism was kept away from the state's core in all four countries, though there was substantial variation in how this was played out. More recent history reveals environmentalism generally kept away from the core, though there are exceptions (especially in Norway and, later, Germany).

Evaluates and compares movement strategy and success in influencing public policy within the state when environmentalists act in conventional interest group or in political party fashion. But movements can also influence public policy when they confront the state from civil society. In addition, movements in civil society can take effect more directly by changing the terms of political discourse and political culture, and engaging paragovernmental activity that bypasses the state. In light of these possibilities, guidelines are developed for movements contemplating whether to act within the state, in oppositional civil society, or in both. We show when and how the popular ‘dual strategy’ for movement action can work—and when it cannot.

This chapter discusses critically the main criticisms of the use of cost‐benefit analysis in environmental policy, such as the incommensurability of environmental values with the values born by marketable goods, and the related unreliability of estimates of peoples’ willingness to pay for environmental protection. While it is found that there is some strength in these criticisms, it is still necessary to take account of the resource constraint involved in decisions concerning public goods. Furthermore, a democratic society needs some impartial and transparent process for solving allocation problems. However, the need to reconcile the valid objections made by environmentalists to cost‐benefit analysis with the problems raised by resource constraints raises new problems of political theory and institutions.