To strike or not to strike? an investigation of the determinants of strike participation at the Fridays for Future climate strikes in Switzerland

Cologna, Viktoria; Hoogendoorn, Gea; Brick, Cameron

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0257296

Cited by 37 publications

(32 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…Studies of the "core" activists who are involved in the inner organization and constitute the local groups show that these particularly engaged activists are even younger than those who mainly engage in protesting (Mucha et al, 2020). The main drivers to participate in the protests are, among others, interpersonal contacts, personal norms, identification with other activists, and trust in climate scientists (De Moor et al, 2020;Cologna et al, 2021;Wallis and Loy, 2021). In this respect, the role of young women as leaders of the movement has also been highlighted (Noth and Tonzer, 2022).…”

Section: Existing Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this respect, the role of young women as leaders of the movement has also been highlighted (Noth and Tonzer, 2022). Moreover, FfF protesters seem to adopt a more climate-neutral lifestyle compared to other people in their age group (Cologna et al, 2021). In terms of the movement's political goals, different opinions seem to exist.…”

Section: Existing Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Listen to the science!”—The role of scientific knowledge for the Fridays for Future movement

Soßdorf

Burgi

2022

Front. Commun.

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The Fridays for Future movement (FfF) has drawn a lot of public and academic attention in recent years. So far, studies investigated the organization, mobilization, and motives of the movement from different perspectives as well as the relevance of science for FfF. Mostly from an external point of view researchers looked at the types of science communication and its reception by the audience (i.e., framing theory). In this paper, we combine theories of science communication with the resource mobilization approach in social movement studies and thereby develop a theoretical framework for the analysis of the use of scientific knowledge by climate movements. We focus on the resource mobilization theory (RMT) and the notion of activists as alternative science communicators. RMT emphasizes the role of resources and organization to explain the success of social movements. Specifically, we regard legitimacy as a moral resource and analyze the importance of communication of climate scientific knowledge for FfF as a political movement. We argue that a climate movement like FfF relies on climate scientific knowledge which serves as a moral resource when climate activists refer to it to legitimate their claims. Empirically, we draw on a survey of more than 500 FfF activists in Germany, that was conducted as a mixed method study in 2020 and 2021. Our objective is to close a gap on the relevance of science for FfF activists from the inner perspective. Following the research question “How and why is scientific knowledge being used by FfF activists to mobilize people?” the findings indicate a rather strategic use of scientific knowledge as an end in itself within the movement. Unsurprisingly, we see that individual strategic use of scientific knowledge within the movement corresponds with the belief that FfF should include scientific knowledge in the general communication strategy of FfF. Moreover, our data show that activists overwhelmingly derive their goals from scientific knowledge and reject the idea that science could be used imprecisely just as an instrument to attain their goals. These learnings shed light on the question of whether science is used as a moral resource within climate movements like FfF.

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Section: Existing Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Existing Theoretical Discussion and Empirical Findingsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“Listen to the science!”—The role of scientific knowledge for the Fridays for Future movement

Soßdorf

Burgi

2022

Front. Commun.

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“…Second, we also contribute to a recent stream of literature investigating the motivational (preferences and beliefs) structure underlying climate protest participation. Climate protesters tend to be instrumentally (i. e. to attain a change of public policy) motivated (de Moor et al, 2020;Cologna et al, 2021), although there is regional and individual heterogeneity about advocated means (Beer, 2020;Svensson and Wahlström, 2021;Huttunen, 2021;Soliev et al, 2021), but there is also a strong affectiveemotional basis, revolving around feelings of worry, anxiety, frustration, and anger (Wahlström et al, 2019;de Moor et al, 2020), and a perceived moral duty to act (Fernandes-Jesus et al, 2020;Wallis and Loy, 2021). Social expression and self-signaling, identification, and event enjoyment also play a role (Walgrave et al, 2012;Fernandes-Jesus et al, 2020;Wallis and Loy, 2021;Cologna et al, 2021).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Free-Riding for Future: Field Experimental Evidence of Strategic Substitutability in Climate Protest

Jarke-Neuert¹,

Perino²,

Schwickert³

2021

Preprint

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We test the hypothesis that protest participation decisions in an adult population of potential climate protesters are interdependent. Subjects (n = 1, 510) from the four largest German cities were recruited two weeks before protest date. We measured participation (ex post) and beliefs about the other subjects' participation (ex ante) in an online survey, used a randomized informational intervention to induce exogenous variance in beliefs, and estimated the causal effect of a change in belief on the probability of participation using a control function approach. Participation decisions are found to be strategic substitutes: a one percentage-point increase of belief causes a .67 percentage-point decrease in the probability of participation in the average subject.

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“…Self-efficacy beliefs thus encourage people to adopt an active, problem-oriented, that is to say, mitigating role in the face of personal or social crises (Homburg and Stolberg, 2006 ). Several empirical studies underpin the relevance of self-efficacy beliefs for pro-environmental and climate-friendly consumption behavior (known as private sphere behavior, e.g., Tabernero and Hernández, 2011 ; Hunter and Röös, 2016 ; Reese and Junge, 2017 ; Loy et al, 2020 ), and for an active role in the climate strike movement (known as activism, e.g., Brügger et al, 2020 ; Cologna et al, 2021 ), as well as for the support of climate policies (known as public behavior, e.g., Bostrom et al, 2019 ).…”

Section: Efficacy Beliefs As Antecedents Of Climate-friendly Private ...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Has the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened confidence in managing the climate crisis? Transfer of efficacy beliefs after experiencing lockdowns in Switzerland and Austria

Moser

Seebauer

2022

Front. Psychol.

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In the spring of 2020, countries introduced lockdowns as radical measures to deal with the first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic, which led to strong disruptions of people's everyday lives. Such drastic collective measures had previously seemed inconceivable in relation to other urgent crises, such as the climate crisis. In this paper, we ask how individual, participatory, and collective efficacy beliefs in dealing with the COVID-19 pandemic transferred to efficacy beliefs regarding the climate crisis. We present comparative results from two surveys: Study 1 assesses efficacy beliefs among German-speaking Swiss residents (n = 1,016), shortly after lockdown measures were relaxed. Study 2 compares changes in efficacy beliefs among Austrian high school students (n = 113) before and after the lockdown. In Study 1, climate-related self- and participatory efficacy are enhanced by the corresponding COVID-19-related beliefs. Climate-related efficacy beliefs mediate the effect of COVID-related counterparts on climate-friendly behavior and policy support. Study 2 shows that COVID-19-related efficacy beliefs are transferred to climate-related counterparts over time, and that the transfer of participatory efficacy is moderated by perceived similarity of the two crises. Experiencing successful individual and collective action during the COVID-19 pandemic seems to inspire confidence in dealing with climate change. Underlying processes (direct transfer, consistency, awareness-raising, learning) are discussed.

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To strike or not to strike? an investigation of the determinants of strike participation at the Fridays for Future climate strikes in Switzerland

Cited by 37 publications

References 56 publications

“Listen to the science!”—The role of scientific knowledge for the Fridays for Future movement

“Listen to the science!”—The role of scientific knowledge for the Fridays for Future movement

Free-Riding for Future: Field Experimental Evidence of Strategic Substitutability in Climate Protest

Has the COVID-19 pandemic strengthened confidence in managing the climate crisis? Transfer of efficacy beliefs after experiencing lockdowns in Switzerland and Austria

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