Socio-Politically Polarized Contexts, Urban Mobilization and the Environmental Movement: A Comparative Study of Two Campaigns of Protest in Northern Ireland
Socio-Politically Polarized Contexts, Urban Mobilization and the Environmental Movement: A Comparative Study of Two Campaigns of Protest in Northern Ireland
Author(s)
Cinalli, Manlio
Abstract
Uses a structural approach to investigate the continuity and discontinuity between “old” urban and “new” environmental protest, opening further space for analysis of the relationship between different mobilizations in Northern Ireland. The focus is on two mobilizations, showing that: the first Westlink protest of the 1970’s was not the product of an integrated social movement but rather of a heterogeneous and instrumental coalition of urban and political actors that gained no support from formal environmental organizations and soon split along the national-religious divide; while the current Westlink campaign is the product of a cohesive network which cuts across the many sociopolitical cleavages of Northern Ireland, linking together local, urban, and community groups, conservation and environmental organizations, associations, universities, and political actors and parties, often of opposing national-religious identity.