This paper adds a new perspective to recent debates about the political nature of rights through attention to their distinctive role within social movement practices of moral critique and social struggle. The paper proceeds through a critical examination of the Political Constitutionalist theories of rights politics proposed by Jeremy Waldron and Richard Bellamy. While political constitutionalists are correct to argue that rights are ‘contestable’ and require democratic justification, they construe political activity almost exclusively with reference to voting, parties and parliamentary law-making, neglecting the vital role rights play in political struggle outside and against the official institutions of democratic citizenship. In contrast to the political constitutionalist stress on the patient and reciprocal negotiation of rights within formal electoral processes, this paper locates the political nature of rights in their conflictual logic as ‘claims’ in multiple spheres that function to mobilise oppositional support against powerful adversaries and challenge dominant understandings. An activist citizenship of rights is frequently necessary, it argues, given the structural barriers of power and inequality that distort legislative decision-making and lead to the denial of fundamental moral entitlements to less powerful groups. The paper provides an illustration of activist citizenship taken from a contemporary squatting movement centred around the right to housing, Take Back the Land. In exercising the moral right to housing, for which they demand political recognition, through the occupation of vacant buildings, the practices of Take Back the Land reflect the conflictual dimension of rights as claims in keeping with their historical role in empowering subordinate groups to challenge unjust relations of power and inequality.

Despite a resurgence in the use of occupations as a political tactic in the UK, there is little agreement on how they contribute to the realisation of a movement's goals. Drawing on the author's experience of occupations at University College London (UCL), this profile argues for an understanding of occupation according to a threefold model of transformational social change: symbiotic, ruptural and interstitial. As the occupations progressed, UCL activists' understanding of the collective action they had undertaken was expanded and transformed, with increasing emphasis placed on the ruptural and interstitial visions. These both reflected and reinforced a broader process of politicisation and radicalisation amongst the student body. The profile concludes by suggesting that no conception of the purpose of an occupation should be regarded as universally valid since an accommodation between competing strategic visions is both required and necessary.Over the course of the 2010-2011 academic year, students and their supporters at University College London (UCL) carried out three occupations in protest at cuts to higher education and the government's wider austerity measures. The first of these, which took place in the Jeremy Bentham Room (JBR) between 24 November and 10 December, was one of the most prominent of over 50 school and university occupations taking place at that time, attracting significant media attention and serving as a focal point for the national campaign of resistance to the government's legislation on tuition fees. In February, a second occupation took place in another conference room, the Old Refectory. This occupation lasted several days and fed into the occupation of an entire building in Bloomsbury owned by another London university, Royal Holloway. It served as a radical organising space-the Anti-Cuts Space-before being raided by bailiffs. A third occupation at UCL in support of a lecturers' strike took place between 22 and 24 March in the university registry.It is striking how, during the winter of 2010, the act of occupation as a political tactic enjoyed a huge resurgence amongst the student population of the UK at a time when the majority had only a vague idea of what an occupation is and what it was expected to achieve. The over-arching goal of stopping the government's legislation on tuition fees going through parliament was, presumably, shared by all who took part in the first

Aside from the case of refugees under international law, are non-citizen outsiders morally justified in unlawfully entering another state? Recent answers to this question, based on a purported right of necessity or civil disobedience, exclude many cases of justified border-crossing and fail to account for its distinctive political character. I argue that in certain non-humanitarian cases, unlawful border-crossing involves the exercise of a remedial moral right to resist the illegitimate exercise of coercive power. The case accepts, for the sake of argument, two conventional assumptions among defenders of immigration restrictions: that states have a ‘right to exclude’ and that migrants have a prima facie duty to respect borders. Nonetheless, where immigration law is racist or otherwise discriminatory, it violates the egalitarian standards at the core of any authority it can plausibly claim over outsiders. In such cases, it may be resisted even where the law is facially non-discriminatory.

I offer a conceptual framework for assessing the normative legitimacy of coercive disobedience—involving threats, disruption, force, and deceit—by social movements. A standard liberal view is that while coercion may be required to resist authoritarian regimes, it is illegitimate in a democratic state since it conflicts with majority rule and mutual respect. In restricting disobedience to a form of moral persuasion, this perspective neglects how social power and material interests can distort the conditions for open, fair deliberation. I offer a principled defense of coercive disobedience, not only in repressive states but in plausibly democratic societies. I argue that coercion can be justified on democratic republican grounds as a means to collectively contest objectionable forms of political domination. The use of coercion can be justified as asurrogatetool of political action for those who lack effective participation rights; as aremedialtool to counteract the dominating influence of powerful actors over the process of democratic will formation, and as amobilizationaltool to maintain participation and discipline in collective action. I conclude by proposing democratic constraints on the use of coercive tactics designed to offset the potential movements themselves become a source of arbitrary power.

Aims: There are a growing number of organisations working to address the connections between climate change and health. This article introduces the concept of ‘theories of change’ – the methodology by which organisations or movements hope to bring about social change – and applies it to the current climate change and health movement in England. Through movement mapping, the article describes and offers reflections on the climate change and health ecosystems in England. Methods: Organisations working on climate change and health in England were identified and publicly available information was collated to map movement characteristics, target stakeholders and methodologies deployed, using an inductive, iterative approach. Results: A total of 98 organisations working on health and climate change (and/or sustainability) were initially identified, of which 70 met the inclusion criteria. Most organisations target two or more stakeholders, with healthcare workers, management structures, and government being most commonly cited. Methodological approaches identified include Formal education programmes; Awareness-raising; Purchasing-procurement power; Advocacy; Financial; Media-messaging; Networking; Knowledge generation; and Policy making, of which education, awareness-raising, and advocacy are most commonly used. Conclusion: There is a tendency for climate change and health organisations in England to focus on individual level and sectoral change over system change. More could be made of the potential for the healthcare professions’ voice and messaging for the wider climate movement. Given the rapid boom of climate change and health organisations in recent years, a mind-set shift that recognises different players as part of a cohesive ecosystem with better coordination and collaboration may reduce unnecessary work, and facilitate more cohesive outcomes.