The Home Rule Advantage: Motives and Outcomes of Local Anti-fracking Mobilization

Abstract

The professionalization of environmental advocacy in the United States has pushed grassroots environmental activists to the margins of federal and state policy arenas. Frequently, individuals or communities who will be directly affected by environmental policy decisions are excluded from participating in policy discussions. Unable to compete with professionalized, national environmental organizations for legislative influence, informal, grassroots environmentalists are compelled to test out new models of organizing that leverage political power outside of institutionally sanctioned venues. This article examines the motives and outcomes of a grassroots social movement to prohibit unconventional shale development (“fracking”) through exercising home rule authorities in rural Southern Illinois. In Illinois, grassroots anti-fracking activists initially collaborated with a statewide coalition of environmental organizations lobbying for a moratorium on fracking in the state. I examine how conflict between coalition partners pushed grassroots anti-fracking activists to adopt new, localized models of organizing to achieve their policy goals. In these local efforts, I find that the same structural features of grassroots groups that enable strategic innovation also prevent the dispersion of authority in informal groups, ultimately undermining their creative capacity.