A Seat at the Table: Coalition Building, Fragmentation, and Progressive Polarization in an Anti-fracking Movement

Abstract The focus on local-level policy initiatives in US anti-fracking movements presents unique opportunities to explore interactions between professional advocacy organizations with regional/national constituencies and grassroots organizations with constituencies who will directly experience changes in local landscapes resulting from unconventional oil and gas development (UOGD). However, research on anti-fracking movements in the US has considered dynamics of interorganizational cooperation only peripherally. This chapter examines factors that motivate coalition building, sources of coalition fragmentation, and the progressive polarization of grassroots anti-fracking and countermovement activists using qualitative research on an anti-fracking movement in Illinois. While grassroots groups may experience some strategic advantages by collaborating with extra-local, professionalized advocacy organizations, these relationships involve navigating considerable inequalities. In the case presented here, I find that coalition building was important for putting UOGD on the policy agenda. However, when anti-fracking activists began experiencing success, institutionalization rapidly produced fragmentation in the coalition, and a countermovement of UOGD supporters was formed. I highlight how ordinary movement dynamics are particularly susceptible to polarization in the context of local land use disputes that “scale-up” to involve broader movement constituencies as perceptions of distributive injustice collide with perceptions of procedural injustice.