The Efficacy of Environmentalist Civil Society Organizations in Shifting Government Priorities: A Case Study of Extinction Rebellion UK
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.63313/EBM.9075Keywords:
Environmental Policy, UK, Extinction Rebellion, Environmentalist Civil Society Organizations, GovernmentAbstract
The urgency of the climate crisis has galvanized environmental movements around the world, with Extinction Rebellion (XR) playing a key role in UK environmental policy. XR challenges the dominant political and economic paradigm that prioritizes growth over sustainability, with disruptive proposals including government recognition of the crisis, net-zero commitments, and citizen-led ecological governance. This paper explores how environmental civil society organizations (CSOs) can influence a public policy agenda dominated by economic development. Applying frameworks such as IAD, ACF, social movement theory, and game theory, this paper analyses XR's strategy and its impact on UK climate policy.
References
[1] Berger, J., & Liebe, U. (2025). Effective climate action must address both social inequality and inequality aversion. Npj Climate Action, 4(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s44168-025-00208-7
[2] Caren, N. (2007). Political Process Theory. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Sociology. https://doi.org/10.1002/9781405165518.wbeosp041
[3] Chong, D., & Druckman, J. N. (2007). Framing Theory. Annual Review of Political Science, 10(1), 103–126. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.polisci.10.072805.103054
[4] Devaney, L., Torney, D., Brereton, P., & Coleman, M. (2020). Ireland’s Citizens’ Assembly on Climate Change: Lessons for Deliberative Public Engagement and Communication. Envi-ronmental Communication, 14(2), 141–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2019.1708429
[5] Fisher, D. R. (2019). The broader importance of #FridaysForFuture. Nature Climate Change, 9(6), 430–431. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41558-019-0484-y
[6] Fotaki, M., & Foroughi, H. (2021). Extinction Rebellion: Green activism and the fantasy of leaderlessness in a decentralized movement. Leadership, 18(2), 224–246.
[7] GDELT Project. (2019). Extinction Rebellion’s Rise Coincides With Steadily Increasing Me-dia Coverage Of Climate Change – The GDELT Project. Gdeltproject.org. https://blog.gdeltproject.org/extinction-rebellions-rise-coincides-with-steadily-increasing-media-coverage-of-climate-change/
[8] IPCC. (2018). Global Warming of 1.5 oC. IPCC; Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. https://www.ipcc.ch/sr15/
[9] Jacobsson, K., & Korolczuk, E. (2019). Mobilizing Grassroots in the City: Lessons for Civil Society Research in Central and Eastern Europe. International Journal of Politics, Culture, and Society. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10767-019-9320-7
[10] Jenkins, J. C. (1983). Resource Mobilization Theory and the Study of Social Movements. Annual Review of Sociology, 9, 527–553. https://www.jstor.org/stable/2946077
[11] Maestre-Andrés, S., Drews, S., & van den Bergh, J. (2019). Perceived fairness and public ac-ceptability of carbon pricing: a review of the literature. Climate Policy, 19(9), 1186–1204. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2019.1639490
[12] Nisbett, N., Viktoria Spaiser, Leston-Bandeira, C., & Valdenegro, D. (2024). Climate action or delay: the dynamics of competing narratives in the UK political sphere and the influence of climate protest. Climate Policy, 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/14693062.2024.2398169
[13] Ostrom, E. (1990). Governing the Commons: The Evolution of Institutions for Collective Action. Land Economics, 68(3), 354. https://doi.org/10.2307/3146384
[14] Ostrom, E., Gardner, R., Walker, J., & Arun Agrawal. (1994). Rules, games, and com-mon-pool resources. The University Of Michigan Press.
[15] Peterson, A. (1989). Social Movement Theory. Acta Sociologica, 32(4), 419–426. https://www.jstor.org/stable/4200771
[16] Pierskalla, J. H. (2010). Protest, deterrence, and escalation: The strategic calculus of gov-ernment repression. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 54(1), 117–145. https://doi.org/10.1177/0022002709352462
[17] Sabatier, P. A. (1988). An advocacy coalition framework of policy change and the role of policy-oriented learning therein. Policy Sciences, 21(2-3), 129–168.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 by author(s) and Erytis Publishing Limited.

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.