Varieties of climate activism: assessing public support for mainstream and unorthodox climate action in the United Kingdom

Abstract

Is the UK public willing to financially support environmental organizations that adopt disruptive tactics (museum and art gallery protests, sporting event disruptions, and traffic stoppages), as opposed to orthodox tactics (litigation, lobbying, and research and education)? Using a conjoint choice experiment (N = 1,023; N _obs = 10,230), we asked respondents’ willingness to donate £25 to hypothetical environmental organizations that differ in terms of (1) advocacy tactics, (2) expenditure on administrative overheads, (3) representation of women on their boards, (4) organizational age, (5) organizational size, (6) number of volunteers, and (7) revenue from citizen donations. We find respondents’ willingness to donate diminishes when organizations adopt disruptive tactics. These results hold across party preferences, ideology, generation, location, and environmental policy attitudes. Further, respondents are willing to donate to organizations that rely on donations from the general public, have low overheads, are supported by volunteer labor, and provide representation to women on their boards.

Keywords

• climate change
• protest
• disruptive advocacy
• social movements
• conjoint experiment
• non-governmental organizations