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ABSTRACT
Protest is a tool that social movements can use to express discontent and present claims to those in power. In New Zealand, campaigns around native forest protection, genetic engineering, mining and offshore oil exploration have mobilised numerous participants, forcing the state to acknowledge public concerns and, in some cases, effect change of course. However, impact of the ideological orientation of the governing party on environmental protest behaviour is less well understood. The aim of this paper is to identify how political opportunities and threats in the protest arena are shaped by changes in the electoral arena. The methodology of protest event analysis is used to identify environmental protest under the left-wing Labour (1999–2008) and right-wing National (2008–2017) governments. Findings suggest that the orientation of the governing party is important in shaping opportunities, illustrated by periods of dominance of the electoral arena by the National Party leading to a corresponding intensification of mobilisation in the protest arena.
Acknowledgements
The author would like to thank the reviewers and editors for their comprehensive and considered comments on the paper. Thanks also to Nyk Huntington and Petra Mäkelä for providing comments on earlier drafts. The protest catalogue the paper draws on was created while the author was a Resident Scholar at the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at Victoria University Wellington.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author.
Notes
1. The colloquial phrase ‘yeah, nah’ has been described as a way of saying no, while giving the appearance of considering the question (Simpson Citation2016).
2. The campaign was successful in slowing the spread of GE technologies in New Zealand. Indeed, according to the Ministry for the Environment (Citation2017), ‘New Zealand’s laws and regulations governing genetic modification are among the most rigorous in the world’. There have been no approvals for its commercial application and consequently, no GE technology is currently applied in New Zealand agriculture. However, Kurian and Wright (Citation2012) argue that public voices continue to be systematically marginalised in the regulatory process.
3. The countries were Canada, West Germany, Great Britain, Japan, New Zealand, Norway, Spain and the United States.
4. The classification of Greens under the ‘far left’ party grouping is derived from the International Social Survey Programme as cited by Dalton (Citation2015). The quantitative form of the ISSP data obscures the diversity of Green Party supporters from across the political spectrum, highlighting the difficulty of placing green issues in traditional left-right categories. See for example Camcastle (Citation2007). Thanks to the reviewer for pressing this point.
5. Election years where there was a change in government (1999 and 2008) are excluded to focus on years when each government was in charge for the whole calendar year.
6. For a fuller discussion of the data collection and coding, see O’Brien (Citation2016a).
7. Online news sources have increased in prominence during the period under consideration. However, it is argued that drawing on traditional newspaper sources is an effective approach, as they provide a degree of continuity. Thanks to Petra Mäkelä for pressing on this point.
8. Although new media technologies can facilitate the spread of information and make it easier to coordinate across levels and campaigns, Bennett and Segerberg (Citation2013, 201–02) note that the effects on mobilisation continue to be shaped by the specific context, as ‘technologies and the organizational forms in which they may be embedded do not work independently of political opportunities and social context’.
9. Events focused on ‘climate’ and ‘oil and gas’ were coded separately based on the core issue derived from an examination of the news reports. While protests over oil and gas are linked to climate change, many were identified as targeting-specific exploration/extraction plans and sites as the primary interest.
10. On the use of violence by radical environmental groups, see Nagtzaam (Citation2017).
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Thomas O’Brien
Thomas O’Brien is a lecturer in the Centre for International Security and Resilience at Cranfield University at the Defence Academy of the United Kingdom. His research considers democratisation, leadership, environmental politics and social movements. Recent work has appeared in Kōtuitui: New Zealand Journal of Social Sciences Online, Journal of Sociology, Government & Opposition, and Contemporary Social Science.