The use of direct action by groups such as Earth First! and anti-roads direct action can be seen as a perceived response to having a lack of an impact in conventional institutional processes. At Twyford Down, the local Joint Action Group tried conventional processes to try and stop the M3 development. However, after losing an inquiry, having tunnel proposals rejected, losing in High Court and then the Government being able to affect an EC review in its favour during negotiations, Connelly and Smith (2003: 94) conclude that:
Local activists were faced with the option of resigning themselves to defeat or continuing the campaign in a new form now that all the legal and political institutional processes had been exhausted.
Hence, having no impact through conventional institutional processes seems yet another reasonable, and used, rationale for using direct action. This was certainly the rationale for many of those who used direct action against roads, as this Twyford Down campaigner shows:
Here is the justification, whenever it is needed, for non-violent direct action. The system allowed us to spend decades in argument, and huge sums of money, making an intellectually unshakeable case, only for the system to brush it all aside (‘ibid’).
A lack of conventional avenues to pursue green causes effectively can be seen as a vital reason why many direct action groups/individuals have perceived the need to turn to more alternative methods, such as direct action. The rationale for direct action, in such cases, is that groups/individuals want to fight for green causes and direct action is perceived as a necessary strategy due to the ineffectiveness of more conventional means. However, the underlying rationale for any green strategy is the perception that that strategy will facilitate green change. So there must be reasons why direct action groups are motivated to use unconventional tactics to facilitate green change simply because they think such methods will be effective. As it seems logical to depart from conventional strategies because they’re perceived as inefficient, it would be pointless to adopt non-conventional strategies, which you perceived would fare no better.
One reason why direct action is perceived as being effective in furthering green aims, is the ‘logic of numbers.’ Many believe that direct action will be effective in furthering green aims by showing the sheer size of protest to both the opposing institution and to the general public (wider political pressure can then be placed on the opponent). The logic of numbers’ shows why some green direct activists rationalise the use of direct action as an effective way to promote their cause (Carter 2001: 147).
One motivation for direct action, on the grounds that it could be effective in furthering green aims, is the ‘logic of bearing witness.’ Della Porta and Diani describe this as seeking to:
Demonstrate a strong commitment to an objective deemed vital for humanity’s future … the right to influence decision making processes comes from neither formal investiture nor intrinsic power but from force of commitment (della Porta and Diani in Doherty 2002: 169).
‘Bearing witness’ shows to the opponent that the protesters believe what it is doing is wrong and insist on witnessing the act to show it’s opposed (Doherty et al. 2000: 2). This logic of bearing witness, is closely tied to another rationale for direct action which draws from Gandhi’s ‘satyagraha’ or ‘truthforce.’ It is by showing the moral superiority of their actions through their willingness to undergo sacrifice and physical distress that activists aim to influence their opponent to back-down (‘ibid’). Direct action which was motivated to ‘bearing witness’ and/or show a moral superiority is reliant on appealing to the opponents better nature or through appealing to the wider audience to apply political pressure (‘ibid’), and hence try and effect decision-making in political and economic institutions. Examples of direct action justified on this rationale can be seen in the new wave of direct action from the 1990s. Through tactical innovations such as tunnels and tree houses protesters have created situations of personal vulnerability, which have given then the moral high ground and demonstrated the force of their convictions (ibid). These direct action strategies have appealed to a wider audience and applied political pressure on decision-making bodies to react. The logic of ‘bearing witness’ and moral superiority has shows why some green direct activists rationalise the use of direct action as an effective way to promote their cause.
Another motivation for direct action, on the grounds that it could be effective in furthering green aims, was the idea that the imposition of costs on opponents could make non-environmentally friendly developments uneconomical. Imposing costs on opponents may be achieved through damaging/sabotaging property, but could also be achieved through causing financial damage through lost production or sales (Doherty 2002: 169). Tactics such as strikes, boycotts, and disruptive/destructive deeds are all forms of direct action, which could be justified as worthwhile by this rationale (‘ibid’). In his book Ecodefense, A Field Guide to Monkeywrenching Dave Foreman, founder of the radical group Earth First!, advocates inflicting costs as a way of opposing non-environmentally friendly activities/organisations. This is the rationale for Earth First! direct action tactics such as monkeywrenching sabotage:
Most businesses, both large and small, operate to produce a relatively small margin of profit, frequently a single digit percentage of overall gross sales. This small net profit is vulnerable to outside tampering, such as a successful consumer boycott which reduces sales. A determined campaign of monkeywrenching affects the other end, by increasing operating costs to the point that they cut into profits (Foreman in Dobson 1991: 228).
Placing costs on opponents is a rationale used by direct action groups such as, for example, Earth First!, Earth Liberation Front (ELF) and GM saboteurs. A member of ELF explains that this was the rationale behind recent ELF arson and destruction activities:
We are trying to cost the rich sprawl corporations enough money so they stop destroying the planet and the health, well-being and existence of humankind" (Campbell 2001).
Some green direct action groups have used the logic of damages/costs as a rationale for why direct action should take place. This argument means that even if green causes have no voice though conventional processes in political and economic organizations, then there are methods of advocating green causes outside of conventional methods. Or as ELF puts it:
Economic sabotage is the only thing the earth-raping, animal-abusing scum will respond to (Vulliamy 1998).
I asserted above that, as with all green strategies, direct action is motivated by the perception that it will be effective in furthering green aims. Therefore, to explain the use of direct action I raised the question: Why have activists perceived that direct action would be a successful and necessary strategy to achieve green aims? We can now see, from the above reasons, that direct action has been perceived as both a necessary and effective strategy for what Rucht would call instrumental outcomes. The instrumental logic of action implies, according to Rucht:
A power-orientated strategy, which is concerned with the outcomes of political decision-making and/or with the distribution of political power (Doherty et al. 2000: 13).
The above reasons therefore have shown that the motivation/rationale for using direct action have been the perception that direct action is an/the necessary and effective strategy for influencing decision-making and power in established institutions, so that environmental issues are promoted.
However, if direct action is motivated by the perception that it will be effective in furthering green aims, it is possible to see that not all green aims are instrumental outcomes. Some direct action has been motivated by an expressive logic of action. Rucht states that the expressive logic of action:
Corresponds to the identity-orientated strategy, which focuses on … trying to change cultural codes by alternative lifestyles (Rucht in Doherty et al. 2000: 12).
Green action is hereby driven by the rationale that through altering dominant cultural codes such as by “changing institutions and behaviours of importance to society” (Jordan 1998: 315), ecological principles can be promoted. In what ways and why has direct action seemed like an effective and necessary tactic to further the altering of dominant cultural codes, or what I will call: expressive outcomes.
One reason that direct action was seen as a means to promote expressive outcomes has been that many greens were disillusioned with conventional groups, even once radical ones, such as FoE and Greenpeace, for not promoting cultural changes. Because FoE and Greenpeace had become what Jordan and Maloney (1997) describe as ‘protest businesses’, commanding massive budgets due to huge increases in membership subscriptions; promoting cultural change proved challenging due to the fear of “making demands that alienate potential donors” (Wall 1999: 189). As conventional strategies seemed to be ineffective at promoting changes to cultural codes, which would further ecological principle, many saw the need for non-conventional strategies to promote changes to dominant cultural codes. The reason that many saw direct action as an effective method of promoting expressive ends, is because groups such as EF! (UK) and the wider anti-roads movement, living as they do on subtler resources, have been able to effectively call for “more fundamental transformation, without having to frame their demands so as to appease car owners” (Wall 1999: 189).
To explain the rationale for direct action I have tried to demonstrate the main reasons why and how protesters have perceived the use of direct action strategies to be necessary and effective to further green aims, in either instrumental and/or expressive ends. I believe I have shown that the reasons to justify and motivate direct action strategies are both varied and wide-ranging, which perhaps should not be surprising given that it has already been noted that direct action itself is a broad term itself, which represents many differences (such as in people (and hence perceptions), tactics, aims and ideologies).
The subsequent question to now raise is: Even though the rationale for employing direct action has been that activists have perceived it to be an effective means in furthering green aims, has direct action actually been effective in the promotion of green aims (both instrumental and expressive)? In attempting to answer this question it needs to recognized that while the impact of specific cases may be assessed, trying to assess the effectiveness of direct action overall and draw any firm conclusions is very difficult. At best, broad, unquantifiable judgment will have to be drawn. Secondly, it’s often hard to assess the effectiveness of direct action strategies in isolation from other factors/and strategies, which have been working in tandem. As Jonathon Porrit says, direct action is often only ‘half of a dual strategy’ such as in the case of policy changes in the transport area (Dryzek et al. 2003: 157).
All of the above factors illustrate the difficulty of measuring overall impact. However, Carter (2001: 150) argues that we can make:
A step in this direction by applying a framework, which distinguishes five kinds of impact: individual identity, sensitising, procedural, structural and substantive.
In my attempt to assess the overall effectiveness of direct action, I will apply Carter’s framework and attempt to show whether direct action has had an impact in each of the five ways outlined by Carter.
I believe that the main test of the effectiveness of direct action is its substantive impact – its material results. However, this is particularly hard to evaluate overall, as there have been both successes and failures. An example of clear success is in Australia where between 1979-1983 “direct action helped the environmental movement to achieve success in the three important conflicts over forest issues (Doherty 2002: 161). Again, on the success side, following several years of massive, occasionally violent protest at Wackersdorf (a proposed nuclear fuel reprocessing facility) in Germany, ‘the utilities abandoned the project.’ Furthermore, as the movement was ‘denied a formal (let alone equal) role in the decision making process” the movement “relied on direct action to stop the project” (Dryzek et al. 2003: 145). This meant that direct action was a complete success, or as Dryzek et al. (‘ibid’) say: “Wackersdorf is a textbook example of a social movement achieving its goal through action in civil society.” However, on the other hand, although this prevented the reprocessing at Germany, reprocessing was instead done in France and the UK (‘ibid’).
A partial success was in 1998 when “Britain's rapidly expanding army of direct action campaigners against genetically modified crops” claimed their “first major victory with the announcement by a leading seed company that it has been forced out of the field by sabotage of its trial crops”(Millar 1999). Although they forced a company out of the field, this was only the first withdrawal by a major seed company, and so GM tests continued.
Examples on the failure side include the direct action of FoE in their famous ‘bottle-drop’ forced no change on Schweppes (Doherty et al. 1998: 5). Another ‘defeat’ was that most of the British roads, which were the cause of extensive direct action campaigning in the 1990s, have eventually been built. (Carter 2001: 152). However, the abandonment of the Oxleas Wood road was widely reported as “due to fears of repeating the scenes of disruption seen at Twyford Down.” Direct action supported might say that this was a case of ‘lose a battle, win a war’ and point furthermore to successive Labour and Conservative government making substantial cuts in their road-building programmes as evidence of longer-term, broader policy success (Dobson 2000: 145). However, Dobson (‘ibid’) says that cynics would reply that:
This has more to do with pressure from Members of Parliament in the South of England worried about losing their seats in the next general election than with protesters risking their lives by lying down in front of bulldozers.
In sum, the wide-range of successes and failure make it unclear how effective direct action has been overall in achieving substantive effects. Not to mention that commentators can vary dramatically in their appraisal of the impact of direct action such as, for example, Freundenberg & Steinsapir finding that US grassroots campaigns have had an impact on pollution control legislation whereas others such as Gould et al. are more circumspect (Carter 2001: 152). Furthermore, sometimes it is hard to know if direct action has been the decisive factor in causing an impact (i.e. cuts in UK road-building programme). Only the anti-roads demonstrations could claim, and somewhat controversially at that, to have affected wider policy by asserting that campaigns pushed road building high up the political agenda to and created the climate for cuts in the programme (Carter 2001: 152). So overall, I can say no more than that direct action issues have had varying success. Although, in most cases it’s fair to say that where there has been success the impact is quite narrow and campaigns have, as Carter says, “rarely proved decisive in the wider policy arena” (‘ibid’).
Similarly to assessing the effectiveness of direct action campaigns aiming for instrumental impact through influencing decision-making and policy of established institutions (above), assessing the effectiveness of direct action in creating an expressive impact through the altering of dominant cultural codes is extremely, if not more so, difficult to measure. However, Doherty et al. (2000: 21) claim that “direct action has helped to shift radically specific cultural codes concerning certain dominant aspects of contemporary life.” Two in particular, they argue are “clear.” Firstly it is argued that the numbers of people expressing fundamental ambivalence over the social role of the car has increased. The need to reduce car use has become part of the political discourse on the subject (‘ibid’). Second, it is argued that “cultural codes concerning food have also been transformed by direct action” (‘ibid’) According to Doherty et al. (‘ibid’) direct action has:
Propelled and informed an increasingly critical attitude to big business and to official science, and an increased confidence to challenge the power of those two institutions directly.
However, as I said before quantitative measurement of change in cultural codes/attitude is nigh on impossible. Furthermore, it would be hard to prove that direct action has been the clear-cut determinant behind changing attitude, or even show what extent is proportional to direct actions. Furthermore, it will require time to see just how deep and long-lived the expressive impacts actually are. But in sum, it is possible to say that direct action has helped to shift specific cultural codes. Furthermore, Torgerson discusses the:
Creation of the ‘green public sphere’ in which political lives can be lived as one of the biggest successes of environmentalism, irrespective of instrumental movement accomplishments (Torgerson in Dryzek et al. 2003: 134).
This highlights how the living of alternative lifestyles by direct action individuals can change not just specific cultural codes, but also be effective in altering broader social institutions and behaviours. Although, it has to be said that these extent of people altering broader social institutions and behaviour must be quite small.
Having assessed, what I have seen as the major test of effectiveness – substantial impacts, I now, more briefly, turn to Carter’s four other kinds of possible impact: impact on identity, sensitising impacts, procedural impact and structural impacts.
One way that green strategies can be effective is through impact on identity. Or as Dryzek et al. (2003: 134) put it:
Social movements are also effective to the degree they can impart a collective identity on participants who might otherwise be isolated and politically uninvolved.
As Carter (2001: 150) argues, this kind of politicisation is likely to occur in direct action groups where “individuals engage personally in a collective struggle.” Carter (‘ibid’) then claims that groups in the counter-cultural ecological movement, such as Earth First!, are likely to provide particularly powerful political experience, as illustrated by the anti-roads eco-protesters. Wall (1999: 188) backs this argument up by saying that:
The anti-roads movement of the 1990s has advanced green political goals in perhaps a more fundamental manner than did the 1970s movement, by encouraging thousands, rather than hundreds, of individuals to practise direct action.
Rawcliffe (1998: 133) says that the considerable expertise and activism at local level has in turn:
Begun to shift the emphasis of these local campaigns from ‘NIMBY’ (‘Not in My Back Yard’) onto a more environmental footing.
In short, we can see how direct action in the UK in recent years has been very effective in having an impact on identity, whereby more and more members and supporters are developing a wider ecological consciousness. This can be effective in creating more activists to pursue instrumental ends. However, as Rootes shows (2000) it is surprisingly difficult to measure whether actual levels of protest have increased. Therefore this claim ought to be treated with a certain amount of caution. Developing wider ecological behaviour is also thought effective though in furthering the spread of broader ecological principals/attitudes and expressive ends (Doherty et al. 1998). However, as the 1970s movement showed, direct action is not always effective in developing wider ecological consciousness. Although it is argued that the very act of joining conventional groups is political, and that their group literature can be educative, it might well be true that ‘couch’ members just paying annual payments would have little politicising effect. Direct action strategies, in comparison, are for the most part, effective in the politicisation of their members.
Another way that green strategies can be effective is through sensitising impact, which means that a strategy is effective in helping place the environmental on the political agenda and stimulating public support for the environment (Carter 2003: 151). Carter says that direct action has frequently been successful in capturing media attention, which has pushed environmental issues into the public gaze. The importance of the media as a method to stimulate public attitudes has led groups to concentrate on highly visual campaigns. Greenpeace in particular has had, what Carter (2001: 139) calls, a “symbiotic relationship” with the media, on the basis of ingenious use of ‘guerrilla theatre.’ Carter argues that this has “undoubtedly” helped push issues such as whaling, sealing and the Antarctic into the limelight (‘ibid’). The road protesters too have been ingenious in the use of manufactured devices, (such as tunnels) which made them vulnerable. This manufactured vulnerability allowed them to “create dramatic news stories which last weeks rather than the usual few hours of past blockades or sit-down protests” (Doherty 2000: 290). According to Rawcliffe (1998: 56):
Environmental groups in Britain have effectively used the media, both as a tool to gain political influence and, in raising public awareness, as an agenda-setting mechanism to change the climate of opinion in favour of policy change
An example of how direct action has used the media to raise public awareness and change climate of opinion in favour of policy change is Greenpeace’s direct action strategy of the occupation of Brent Spar oilrig. Carter (2001: 141) explains that a direct action strategy was effective because a brilliantly engineered media campaign made the entire policy of deeps sea disposal of old oil rigs “politically unacceptable.”
I believe we can conclude that there are examples of direct action campaigns, which have had sensitising impacts by placing the environment on the political agenda and stimulating public support for the environment. However, again it is difficult to see to what extent direct action strategies in particular have placed environmental issues on the political agenda as Carter says that the environmental lobby provides educative and persuasive pressure on policy elites to also realise changes in the political agenda. Furthermore, it is debatable whether direct action has been effective at putting the environment as a whole on the political agenda as opposed to pushing individual environmental issues into the public gaze and the political agenda. National green groups themselves in 1997 argued that:
The last five years have certainly seen some progress. But the environment has slipped down the political agenda.
As well as having sensitising impacts on political agendas, and hence instrumental outcomes, direct action strategies are also argued by Dryzek et al. (2003: 148) to have been effective in furthering sensitising impact which promote expressive outcomes. Successful changing of public attitudes can also show how:
Environmentalism has taken effect in part by changing consumer behaviour, as well as reducing the acceptability of particular kinds of actions – for example, dumping recyclable materials and making campfires in old-growth forest (‘ibid’).
I think that it is reasonable to conclude, therefore, that direct action can be thought of as being effective due to wielding substantial sensitising impacts.
Another way that Carter believes green strategies can be effective is through procedural impact, which means that access is gained to decision-making bodies (Carter 2001: 150-1). The once radical group FoE has gained access to decision-making bodies and today is “regularly consulted by government and it’s representatives are frequently found on official committees” (Carter 2001: 139). However, it is doubtful that the direct action of the group has been the reason for such procedural impact due to the fact that it has always employed a mixture of strategies, not to mention that overtime the balance of its activities has shifted away from the confrontational gestures, which helped build its reputation to more conventional strategies (‘ibid’). It seems that procedural impact is hard to come by for direct action groups, especially if they intend to have follow direct action strategies as well as having decision-making body access, due to the fact that:
There is a price to being an insider group, which involves compromise, obedience to the rules of the game and doing business with interests whose values and actions may be anathema to most environmentalists.
However, it can be argued that direct action strategies can be effective at gaining access to decision-making just not for themselves. Dave Foreman, founder of Earth First! explains that:
The actions of monkeywrenchers invariably enhance the status and bargaining position of more ‘reasonable opponents’. … These moderate environmentalists must condemn monkeywrenching so as to preserve their own image, but they should take full advantage of the credence it lends to their approach. (Foreman in Dobson 1991: 229)
Direct action therefore, is thought to be most likely to achieve procedural impacts through enhancing conventional groups chances of achieving decision-making access. Although proving to what extent direct action enhances the chances of conventional groups gaining access would be very hard to measure. Furthermore, access doesn’t mean that there will be any procedural gains – so I believe that it’s very hard to measure the effectiveness direct action has in procedural terms.
The last of Carter’s kind of impact states that green strategies can be effective is through structural impact, which signifies changes in institutional or alliance structures, such as the creation of an environmental agency or shift in attitude of parties (Carter 2001: 150). An example of direct action, which has successfully brought about structural change, is the Wackersdorf case. Dryzek et al. (2003: 146) describe how the response to the movement was:
More positive actions such as the Kohl government’s creation of the federal Ministry for Environment, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety in 1986.
However, as was pointed out in the analysis of substantive changes, direct action has overall had less success in affecting wider policies, than in merely opposing specific campaigns. In reality, few other examples of direct action can claim, especially with any certainty, to have had structural impacts.
In conclusion, this essay has shown that both the ways in which green direct action groups/individuals perceive direct action to be an effective and necessary strategy, and the ways in which direct action actually can be an efficient course of action are varied and wide-ranging.
It is hard to generalise or pinpoint any one particular reason, which explains why, and how direct action is perceived to be a rationale strategy to pursue. However, what I confidently believe can be asserted (in spite of all the calculation difficulties), is that champions of direct action were right to perceive that direct action is a strategy which can be used to effectively accomplish green aims.
