This study examines factors influencing sustained engagement and disengagement in climate activism, specifically within Extinction Rebellion. Through interviews with 26 current and former activists, we identify 10 barriers and facilitators, organized into 3 themes: Socio-organizational barriers and facilitators, Efficacy perceptions, and Burnout and strategies to avoid exhaustion. Participants discussed the following barriers to engagement, potentially leading to disengagement: (1) a lack of social integration, for example, due to biographical differences or difficulties in finding a clear role; (2) conflicts and disagreements (3) doubts about having an impact; (4) challenges within a non-hierarchical organization, such as unclear decision-making procedures or informal leaderships; and (5) burnout stemming from activism-related stressors; and (6) stressors external to activism. Conversely, factors facilitating engagement were: (1) strong social connections; (2) a pragmatic approach to impact, for example, enabled by having a long-term perspective on outcomes; (3) being driven by moral convictions; and (4) access to organizational and individual strategies to manage stress, including the acceptance of varying commitment levels. The findings suggest that the impact of these barriers and facilitators on the activist trajectory is influenced by one’s motivations for engaging. Our discussion offers insights into fostering sustained engagement in social movements.

Sociala rörelser har spelat en viktig roll i många av de samhällsförändringar som präglat Sverige efter andra världskriget. Rörelserna har fört upp nya frågor på samhällets dagordning, ifrågasatt dominerande normer och formulerat nya framtidsvisioner långt innan de spridits bland befolkningen i stort. De sociala rörelsernas betydelse har inte minskat med tiden – tvärtom har olika former av politisk aktivism tilltagit i intensitet sedan 1945, samtidigt som medborgarnas engagemang i politiska partier har avtagit.  Sociala rörelser i Sverige introducerar femton sociala rörelser som varit betydelsefulla i Sverige från 1945 och fram till i dag, från fackföreningsrörelsen, kvinnorörelsen och miljörörelsen till den radikal­nationalistiska rörelsen, djurrättsrörelsen och ortenrörelsen. Boken belyser vilka frågor rörelserna uppmärksammat, hur de försökt påverka politik och samhällsdebatt, vilka idéer och visioner som varit centrala för deras agerande, hur de organiserat sig och inte minst vilken betydelse de har haft för det svenska samhällets utveckling. I boken introduceras också de teorier och begrepp som används i forskningen om sociala rörelser. De medverkande författarna är forskare i sociologi, statsveten­skap, historia, socialt arbete, etnologi och religionshistoria. Boken vänder sig till studenter och forskare inom samhällsvetenskap och humaniora samt till alla som intresserar sig för det svenska samhällets utveckling.

Hur klimatförändringarna ska hanteras är en ödesfråga för samhället. Men om åtgärder som bromsar den globala uppvärmningen ska kunna genomföras krävs medborgarnas stöd. Ofta uppmärksammas hur olika grupper stödjer eller förkastar specifika klimatpolitiska förslag mot bakgrund av deras skilda sociala omständigheter eller politiska orientering. Detta kapitel handlar i stället om allmänhetens syn på vilken sorts klimatvänligt samhälle man vill leva i. Vi undersöker hur stort stödet är för några långsiktiga klimatvisioner som förts fram av klimatrörelsen samt i vilken mån stödet skiljer sig mellan olika grupper. I motsats till den gängse bilden av politisk polarisering kring klimatfrågor visar vår analys ett påfallande starkt stöd för merparten av visionerna, däribland global omfördelning av resurser, ekomodernism och deltagardemokrati.

Mer omdebatterade visioner – såsom de om nerväxt och klimatteknokrati – stöds dock främst av kvinnor, av dem som oroar sig för klimatförändringar, av sympatisörer till vänsterorienterade partier och av klimatengagerade personer.

Descriptions of social movement factionalism are often based on the dichotomous conception of lawful moderates and violent radicals. In this article, we nuance this distinction by illustrating the complexity of radical flanks through an empirically grounded analysis of protest tactics, in which we ask under what conditions radical flanks are likely to use violent protest tactics. Exploring dominant explanations of political violence, the article shows the necessity of understanding the use of violent protest tactics as part of cognitive and relational processes. The use of violent tactics varies greatly across frames and protest issues, pointing to how different logics of protest are tied to different frames. Also, the use of violence is affected by the presence or absence of moderate allies; the likelihood of violence clearly decreases when radicals and moderates form coalitions when organising protests. The analysis is based on a protest event data set covering over 3,900 nonviolent and violent events by the Radical Left-Libertarian Movement in Sweden, 1997–2016. Notably, the results hold over this entire twenty-year period, suggesting that they are robust and provide a better explanation than historically contingent causes.

Class refers to the socio-economic stratification of individuals into more or less distinct social classes. Class is a key concept in political sociology for analysing how the political actions and beliefs of groups and individuals are shaped by labour and property relations.

This chapter describes the development of radical left activism in Scandinavia in the post-war period, with a particular focus on the last four decades. During this period, the main tendency in radical left activism shifted from party-based Marxism-Leninism to network-based, direct-action activism based on libertarian socialist ideals. Combining secondary literature with original quantitative and qualitative data on the radical left-libertarian movements (RLLM) in Sweden and Denmark, this chapter shows how RLLM activism emerged, expanded, and ultimately declined between the early 1980s and late 2010s. While there are key differences between the countries in terms of timing and issue foci, the chapter emphasizes the similarities between the countries. Tracing the movements’ development through sequential phases, the chapter shows them shifting from direct-action networks that engaged in a variety of political issue—anti-fascism, anti-imperialism, feminism, animal rights, etc.—to more “conventional” networks of organizations and initiatives through which activists intervened in local politics and neighborhood and workplace conflicts. The same period also saw the RLLM become less disruptive and violent, in favor of tactical pragmatism and conventional forms of protest. The chapter explains these changes as a combination of four main processes: (1) movement-internal developments, (2) changes in the countercultural milieus surrounding the movement, (3) the political institutionalization of the movement’s main counterpart, the far right, and (4) new patterns of protest policing and state repression.