A transformative political campaign? The new rhetoric of protest against airport expansion in the UK

Abstract

This article explores the logic of political protest by focussing on how, and in what form, groups reproduce themselves. It analyses how HACAN ClearSkies, a local airport protest group, has challenged the dominant ideology governing British aviation policy by articulating a new rhetoric of environmental protest. What we deem a transformative campaign extends the particularistic demand of stopping expansion at Heathrow to a more universal struggle against airport expansion per se. Using political discourse theory, we argue that the campaign was prompted by HACAN's failure to stop the building of Heathrow's Fifth Terminal, the emergence of a new political leadership, and the construction of an innovative political ideology. In so doing, we focus on four discursive logics: the role and practice of naming; the drawing of political frontiers; the creation of equivalences; and the campaign's ideological means of representation. The article concludes by evaluating the challenges facing the campaign.

Notes

The term ‘circumstances of politics’ alludes to philosophers such as David Hume and John Rawls, who refer to the ‘circumstances of justice’ in order to theorise their respective accounts of justice. By analogy, Jeremy Waldron has spoken of the ‘circumstances of politics’ to capture a situation where there is a ‘felt need among the members of a certain group for a common framework or decision or course of action on some matter, even in the face of disagreement about what that framework, decision or action should be’. See J. Waldron, Law and Disagreement (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1999), p. 102.

For work on cycles of protest and political opportunity structures, see S. Tarrow, Power in Movement: Social Movements, Collective Action and Politics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); D. McAdam, J. D. McCarthy and M. N. Zald (Eds), Comparative Perspectives on Social Movements: Political Opportunities, Mobilizing Structures and Cultural Frames (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). For work on the institutionalisation of groups, see M. Olson, The Rise and Decline of Nations: Economic Growth, Stagflation and Social Rigidities (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1982); M. Olson, The Logic of Collective Action: Public Goods and the Theory of Groups (Cambridge, MA: Havard University Press, 1965); F. F. Piven and R. A. Cloward, Poor People's Movements: Why They Succeed, How They Fail (New York: Pantheon Books, 1971).

D. Howarth, Discourse (Buckingham: Open University Press, 2000), pp. 109–111; E. Laclau, New Reflections on the Revolution of Our Time (London: Verso, 1990), pp. 39–51.

H. Staten, Wittgenstein and Derrida (Lincoln and London: University of Nebraska Press, 1984), p. 16.

S. Griggs and D. Howarth, ‘An alliance of interest and identity? Explaining the campaign against the Manchester Airport’s Second Runway', Mobilization, 7 (2002), pp. 43–58.

S. Zˇižek, For They Know Not What They Do (London: Verso), p. 71.

R. D. Putnam with R. Leonardi and R. Y. Nanetti, Making Democracy Work: Civic Traditions in Modern Italy (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993).

Putnam, ibid., p. 89, our emphasis.

M. Castells, The City and the Grassroots (London: Edward Arnold, 1983).

M. Oakeshott, Rationalism in Politics and Other Essays (Indianapolis: Liberty Press, 1991), p. 47.

HACAN ClearSkies, Where did we come from? (www.hacan.org.uk).

H. F. Jones ‘Validity of Leq as a predictor of the impact of aircraft noise on people’, HACAN Proof of Evidence, Public Inquiry into the Fifth Terminal at Heathrow Airport (www.hacan.org.uk/archive/case/leq.htm, 1997), p. 1.

Interview with John Stewart, chair of HACAN ClearSkies, 17 June 2003.

D. A. Franklin, Aviation Policy in the United Kingdom, with particular reference to Heathrow (www.hacan.org.uk/learn/briefing/Franklin.htm, 2002), p. 3

HACAN ClearSkies News, Summer (2000), pp. 4–5.

Financial Times, 07 January 2002.

The Guardian, 09 July 2003.

Stewart, opt. cit., Ref. 13.

Stewart, ibid.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 3.

Stewart, opt. cit., Ref. 8.

Take Off, Winter (2002), p. 5.

Take Off, ibid., p. 3.

Take Off, ibid., p. 3.

M. Heidegger, What is called Thinking? (London: Harper and Row, 1968), p. 120.

S. Zˇižek, The Sublime Object of Ideology (London: Verso, 1989).

HACAN, The Terminal Five Planning Inquiry Submissions, 1995–1999 (www.hacan.org.uk/T5Plan.htm), p. 5.

HACAN, ibid., p. 2.

HACAN, ibid., p. 5.

HACAN, ibid., p. 29.

HACAN, ibid., p. 29.

HACAN, ibid., p. 2.

HACAN, ibid., p. 28.

HACAN, ibid., p. 4, our emphasis.

HACAN, ibid., p. 4.

HACAN, ibid., p. 4, our emphasis.

See for example, The Birmingham Post, 15 January 2002.

See www.airportwatch.org.uk

J. Gazzard (AirportWatch), The Guardian, 02 June 2003.

See D. Howarth, ‘Complexities of identity/difference’, Journal of Political Ideologies, 2 (1995), pp. 55–78; S. Griggs, ‘The discourse of crisis and reform in French public hospitals’ in D. Howarth and J. Torfing (Eds), Discourse Theory and European Politics (London: Palgrave, forthcoming).

AirportWatch, Flying Into Trouble. 2002: The Threat of Airport Growth (London: AEF, 2002), p. 9.

AirportWatch, ibid., p. 2.

AirportWatch, ibid., p. 2.

K. Thompson (Regional Airports Environment Forum), cited in AirportWatch, You're Flying Into Trouble (press release, 19 July 2002), p. 3.

P. Hamblin (Council for the Protection of Rural England), cited in AirportWatch, You're Flying Into Trouble (press release, 19 July 2002), p. 3.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 6.

HACAN ClearSkies, A Poor Deal, May 2003.

HACAN ClearSkies, ibid., p. 1.

HACAN ClearSkies, ibid., p. 2.

HACAN ClearSkies, ibid., p. 1.

HACAN ClearSkies, ibid., p. 4.

HACAN ClearSkies, ibid., p. 1.

HACAN ClearSkies, ibid., pp. 1–2.

AirportWatch, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 9.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 1.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 9.

P. De Zylva (Friends of the Earth), cited in AirportWatch, You're Flying Into Trouble (press release, 19 July 2002), p. 3.

B. Sewill (Gatwick Area Conservation Campaign), cited in AirportWatch, You're Flying Into Trouble (press release, 19 July 2002), p. 3.

Sewill, ibid., p. 3.

De Zylva, op. cit., Ref. 57, p. 3.

AirportWatch, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 1.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 1.

AirportWatch, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 3.

De Zylva, op. cit., Ref. 57, p. 3.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, pp. 8–9.

Tim Williamson (National Society for Clean Air), cited in AirportWatch, You're Flying Into Trouble (press release, 19 July 2002), p. 4.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 7.

AirportWatch, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 11.

AirportWatch, You're Flying Into Trouble (press release, 19 July 2002), p. 2.

AirportWatch, op. cit., Ref. 41, p. 7.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 1.

HACAN ClearSkies, It's the Economy, Stupid, May 2003.

Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 1.

See Franklin, op. cit., Ref. 14, p. 4; HACAN ClearSkies, op. cit., Ref. 72, p. 3.

Email communiqué, Stop Stansted Expansion, 29 August 2003, our emphasis.