What change? Assessing the Extinction Rebellion’s support for climate assemblies

IF 5.2 2区环境科学与生态学 Q1 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES Environmental Science & Policy Pub Date : 2025-02-01 DOI:10.1016/j.envsci.2025.104010

Roberto Falanga , Tiago Carvalho

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Abstract

Extinction Rebellion (XR), founded in 2018, advocates for citizens' assemblies (CAs) on the climate and ecological crisis. This demand underscores XR's aim to enhance democracy “beyond politics” and promote inclusive, effective decision-making to achieve change. The article explores XR's understanding of politics and the democratic legitimacy of CAs in driving change. It examines XR's discourse and repertoire of action by triangulating document analysis, consultation of media resources and interviews with some activists in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Portugal. By situating this research within the broader context of global environmental activism and emerging connections with democratic innovations, this article discusses an emerging paradox inherent in XR's support for CAs. XR simultaneously critiques electoral politics and supports CAs, which maintain a strong connection to party politics though. Moreover, while invoking social pressure beyond the realm of CAs, questions arise about what democratic legitimacy the movement attributes to this type of deliberative mini-publics in the pursuit of change.

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改变什么?评估灭绝叛乱对气候大会的支持

灭绝叛乱（XR）成立于2018年，倡导就气候和生态危机举行公民大会。这一要求强调了XR的目标，即加强“超越政治”的民主，促进包容、有效的决策，以实现变革。本文探讨了XR对政治的理解以及ca在推动变革中的民主合法性。通过三角文献分析、媒体资源咨询以及对英国、意大利和葡萄牙的一些活动家的采访，本文考察了XR的话语和行动。通过将本研究置于全球环境行动主义和与民主创新的新兴联系的更广泛背景下，本文讨论了XR支持ca所固有的一个新兴悖论。XR同时批评选举政治并支持ca，尽管它们与政党政治保持着密切的联系。此外，在诉诸CAs领域之外的社会压力的同时，也出现了这样的问题：这场运动在追求变革的过程中，把什么样的民主合法性赋予了这种审慎的小公众？

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来源期刊

Environmental Science & Policy 环境科学-环境科学

CiteScore

10.90

自引率

8.30%

发文量

332

审稿时长

68 days

期刊介绍： Environmental Science & Policy promotes communication among government, business and industry, academia, and non-governmental organisations who are instrumental in the solution of environmental problems. It also seeks to advance interdisciplinary research of policy relevance on environmental issues such as climate change, biodiversity, environmental pollution and wastes, renewable and non-renewable natural resources, sustainability, and the interactions among these issues. The journal emphasises the linkages between these environmental issues and social and economic issues such as production, transport, consumption, growth, demographic changes, well-being, and health. However, the subject coverage will not be restricted to these issues and the introduction of new dimensions will be encouraged.