How networks of social movement issues motivate climate resistance

Abstract

How do individuals make sense of the specific issues that motivate them when they participate in activism? Are there clear and consistent patterns of motivations among participants and organizers within a movement over time? This paper applies network methods to a unique dataset to understand the relationships and structure formed among the issues that activists cited as motivation for their participation in a series of climate-related demonstrations over a three-year period. We test whether these networks of issue motivations form coherent structures, and whether they reflect the growing emphasis on social justice within the climate movement. Our findings highlight the coherence in the structure of relationships among motivations to participate, especially the centrality of ‘Equality’ as a motivation within our sampled cycle of contention.