Uppsala University

Master Thesis

Does “Fridays for Future” really matter? A Case Study about the Success of the Social Movement in Germany.

Department of Government

Author: Marius Scheitle Supervisor: Paula Blomqvist May 22, 2020 Number of Words: 13,823

Table of Contents

1 Introduction 4

2 Theoretical Background 5

2.1 Definition and Introduction in Theories of Social Movements 5

2.2 Social Movements and their Consequences for Policies 7

2.2.1 Early Research 7

2.2.2 Research on Contextual Factors 8

2.2.3 Causal Mechanisms behind Social Movement Impact 11

2.2.4 The Rise of Case Studies 13

3 Methods and Research Design 13

3.1 Case Selection 14

3.2 Methodological Procedure 14

3.3 Measurement and Operationalization of Social Movement Success 16

3.4 Data Collection 18

4 Fridays for Future in Germany: Has the Movement had Policy Success? 20

4.1 The Movement in Germany 20

4.2 The German Climate Protection Programme 21

4.3 Access Responsiveness 23

4.4 Agenda Responsiveness 24

4.5 Policy Responsiveness 26

5 Discussion: Why only limited Success? 30

6 Conclusion 33

7 References 34

List of Tables

Table 1: Levels of Movement Success; adapted from Almeida (2019, p. 126) 17 Table 2: Fulfilment of the Demands of FFF in the German Climate Protection Programme 29

1 Introduction

“We must change almost everything in our current societies. The bigger your carbon footprint is, the bigger your moral duty. The bigger your platform, the bigger your responsibility. Adults keep saying: ‘We owe it to the young people to give them hope.’ But I don’t want your hope. I don’t want you to be hopeful. I want you to panic. I want you to feel the fear I feel every day. And then I want you to act. I want you to act as you would in a crisis. I want you to act as if the house was on fire. Because it is.”

(Thunberg, 2019)

If someone did not know Greta Thunberg before, this changed finally with this speech at the World Economic Forum 2019 in Davos. The climate activist and founder of the social movement Fridays for Future (FFF from now on in this paper) tried to wake up the world with this speech. Originally, the movement began in August 2018 when Greta Thunberg, at this time fifteen years old, refused to go to school and sat in front of the Swedish parliament instead to strike for policies keeping the global warming under two degrees in line with the Paris Agreement (Fridays for Future, 2020a; United Nations Climate Change, 2015). With school strikes every Friday from 8 September 2018 on (Fridays for Future, 2020a), Greta Thunberg set off an avalanche. Many students all around the world followed her in order to put pressure on politicians to act against global warming. The statistics at the homepage of the movement are impressive: According to the movement, there have been 121,000 strike events with 13 million strikers in 228 countries and 7,500 cities (Fridays for Future, 2020e). In this sense, FFF can be called successful. But is the movement really successful in influencing politicians? Does FFF really matter? Studying this is the focus of this paper, since FFF’s goal is not only to get media attention with impressive statistics, but to change behaviours of politicians in order to change policies to fight the climate crisis. Therefore, this analysis aims to shed light on the success of FFF in Germany where it emerged in early 2019 and evolved soon into one of the biggest branches of the movement with high presence in the media (Rucht, 2019, p. 7). Especially the big cities of Germany, like Berlin, Hamburg, or Munich, registered a high number of protesters, but there are also a lot of local groups (Fridays for Future, 2020c). In autumn 2019, the German government passed a climate protection programme where it formulated goals and measures to meet the Paris Agreement. Hence, it

seems like FFF had an impact on policies in Germany. However, a closer look is crucial to establish whether there is really a causal link between the actions of the movement and the German government. In this sense, the research question this paper answers is as follows: Was the social movement FFF successful in influencing policies in Germany?

This is studied with the following structure. After this introduction, the second part deals with the theoretical background of social movements. Since scholarly work on this topic has grown significantly in the last decades, the literature review focusses specifically on research about social movements and their consequences for public policies. This is followed by the methods and the research design of the thesis. In doing so, I will outline the case selection, the methodological procedure as well as the determination which data is used. Furthermore, it introduces a method of measuring social movement success and presents the operationalization of this analysis. The fourth section consists of the case study. The focus lies on FFF in Germany and the question whether and how the movement influenced the different levels of access responsiveness, agenda responsiveness, and policy responsiveness. The result of the case study is that FFF had only limited success in influencing environmental policies in Germany. This leads to the discussion in chapter five and the question why the movement had only limited success. This shows an interesting puzzle: Despite most factors would predict a success story of FFF, the actual success is only limited. The thesis ends with a concluding summary of the findings and their implications for future research. For the sake of simplicity, this paper uses the terms “impact”, “influence” and “success” interchangeable in relation to social movements.

2 Theoretical Background

This chapter reviews the literature on social movements. In doing so, it starts with a definition and a broader introduction of the theories of social movements. The second part deals especially with the impact of social movements on public policies and structures the literature on this research field.

2.1 Definition and Introduction in Theories of Social Movements

Social movements are increasingly omnipresent in world politics. The Arab Spring in the Middle East, the Coloured Revolutions in Eastern Europe, Occupy Wall Street in the United

States, or protests against China in Hong Kong are only a few examples (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 3). On this ground, there are attempts to call current societies “social movement societies” (Almeida, 2019, p. 1; Meyer, 2014). However, it is still difficult to structure the literature and theories about social movements as well as to establish the term in a distinct way. What all definitions of social movements have in common is the emphasis of collective actions of a group outside of the institutionalized political power to achieve a common goal. For instance, Özen and Özen (2010, p. 33) define social movements as

“(…) collective actions of relatively less powerful social groups that cannot take part in formal decision-making mechanisms at public level in order to voice their demands to public opinion and to influence decision-makers”.

From the 1970s on, research about the phenomenon of social movements increased slowly (Bosi et al., 2016, pp. 3–4). With the 1990s and the beginning of the twenty-first century, scholarship significantly emerged. This happened often in an unstructured way. Amenta et al. (2010, p. 288) mention for instance the lack of literature reviews since the influential piece of Giugni (1998). This paper especially focusses on the subarea of impacts and outcomes of social movements and deals in particular with this theme of the literature. This subfield of social movement research can be structured into three broad types of outcomes (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 4). One focus lies on individual, personal, and biographical consequences of social movements (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 4). Another theme addresses cultural changes as well as changes in behaviours or social norms (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 4). The third topic deals with political change (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 4). This is the most common research focus and builds the foundation for this paper. However, structuring this huge amount of literature in a reasonable way remains a difficult task. For instance, Kolb (2007, p. 6) states that the problem of this research field is that the literature grows but does not accumulate.

In order to solve this problem, this paper uses a modified structure of Bosi et al. (2016) and Giugni (1994). They distinguish two waves of literature about social movements. The first wave discussed in particular the debate of disruption versus moderation and strongly organized movements versus loosely organized movements (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 11). This is titled “Early Research” in this paper. The second wave of scholarly work emphasizes context as the central variable for social movement outcomes. This is a huge field in the literature since there are plenty of contextual factors which are associated with the impact of social

movements. However, according to Bosi et al. (2016, pp. 11–12), there has been a lot of progress since then, especially regarding causal mechanisms explaining why and how social movements do have an impact or not. This is seen as sort of a third wave of the literature in this paper. A further amendment to this structure is the last part of the next chapter. It deals with case studies as this form of research increased in recent years. However, what is important to mention is that the different subareas in this research field cannot be differentiated in a distinct way. Instead, all subfields influence each other.

2.2 Social Movements and their Consequences for Policies

2.2.1 Early Research Research about social movement and their consequences began slowly in the 1970s with the focus on movement-controlled variables and an interest whether social movement are able to be successful (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 11). Hence, the core question of scholarly work at these times was: Are social movements successful and how can they affect their own success? There are in particular two main debates. The first one between the impact of organization, more specifically strongly organized social movements versus loosely organized social movements (Giugni, 1998, p. 374). Another debate is concerned with the question whether disruptive or moderate tactics of social movements are more successful (Giugni, 1998, p. 373). Especially the study of Gamson (1990) is pathbreaking in this research field. He conducted a comprehensive analysis of 53 American challenging groups between 1800 and 1945 (Giugni, 1994, p. 3). Gamson (1990) provided evidence that successful challenging groups are more centralized, unfactionalized, and bureaucratized. In this sense, strongly organized movements are associated with more success. Furthermore, Gamson (1990) found a correlation between disruptive tactics and success leading to the conclusion that violence works. Other findings of his study are that single issue demands and selective incentives are correlated with the success of social movements (Gamson, 1990; Giugni, 1994, p. 3). In the following, a wealth of scholars referred to the analysis of Gamson (1990). Many authors criticized his study, for example on methodological grounds (Giugni, 1994, p. 4), but most of them confirmed his major findings (see Giugni, 1998, p. 375).

2.2.2 Research on Contextual Factors During the 1990s, research about social movements and their impact on policies moved on towards the role of contextual factors (Bosi et al., 2016, p. 11). Hence, a good headline for this wave of the literature would be that “context matters”. The central question now was: Why are social movements successful or not and which factors influence it? This research theme is still ongoing to some extent. According to Giugni (1998, p. 379), there are two major avenues of scholarly work in this regard. On the one hand, some authors stress the role of public opinion. On the other hand, political opportunity structures are considered as important contextual factors.

According to Giugni (1998, p. 379), social movements typically have two targets: powerholders and the public. By trying to get the support of the public, social movements want to influence politics and policies since governments pay special attention to public opinion (Giugni, 1998, p. 379). Thus, public opinion is not only a direct target for social movements, but also one tool to put pressure on the other direct target, the powerholders. Agnone (2007) finds support that an increase in the number of protests leads in a similar way to favourable policies in a given year as an increase in supportive public opinion on an issue. However, his most interesting finding is an amplification model which predicts that the positive effect of public opinion on policies in a given year is accompanied when it occurs in combination with an increase in the number of protests (Agnone, 2007, p. 1597). In this sense, the impact of public opinion on policy change is stronger when there is an increase of protests. This holds especially for environmental policies (Agnone, 2007, p. 1606). In a similar manner, Giugni (2007, p. 69) finds that the single effect of public opinion is low, but the combination of public opinion, protest activities, and institutional allies is an explanation for the influence of social movements on policies. Amenta et al. (2010, pp. 298–299) also mention the role of public opinion. In a study about feminist movement outcomes, Luders (2016, p. 206) finds that supportive public opinion is an important factor for successful policy outcomes. However, he argues that public opinion is not a sovereign factor for movement success (Luders, 2016, p. 210). Instead, there are also examples for hidden gains of movements which lacked public support (Luders, 2016, p. 210). Soule and King (2006, p. 1880) argue that public opinion is most important in the final stages of the policy process since legislative action is most consequential at this point.

Research about political opportunity structures stress the role of institutional and non- institutional alliances and oppositions as well as the structure of the state as central contextual factors (Giugni, 1998, p. 381). Soule and King (2006, pp. 1881–1882) mention that the political climate and elite allies in influential positions facilitate movement success. They state that political opportunity structures are most important in early stages of the policy process because public opinion matters less at this point (Soule & King, 2006, p. 1882). Banaszak (1996, p. 847) emphasizes different political opportunity structures, in particular institutional ones, in Switzerland and the US which could lead to different impacts of women movements. She argues that different formal opportunities like initiative rights could reduce conflicts leading to less alliances between political parties and movements (Banaszak, 1996, p. 847). Furthermore, the party system could be an important factor since the number of potential allies is higher in systems with more parties and the existence of strong left parties could facilitate actions of challenging movements (Banaszak, 1996, p. 847). Moreover, a growing body of literature concentrates in particular on social movement coalitions. For example, van Dyke and Amos (2017, p. 3) identify crucial factors for the formation of social movement coalitions, namely social ties, conducive organizational structures, ideology, culture, identity, institutional environment, and resources.

Apart from these two major avenues of contextual factors, there are also other approaches stressing for instance time as a crucial factor. Soule and King (2006, pp. 1896–1897) find evidence that social movements matter more in the earlier stages of the policy process since legislators can introduce bills in the agenda-setting process because of movement pressures with low consequences. This phenomenon is confirmed in the literature review of Amenta et al. (2010, p. 291), but challenged in the analysis of Özen and Özen (2010, p. 58) who state that social movements can also be influential at the policy implementation stage. Rochon and Mazmanian (1993) focus on the impact of social movements on the policy process and take a longer-term view. Despite many movements do not effect policy change directly, they can gain access to the policy process and can have an indirect impact (Rochon & Mazmanian, 1993).

Furthermore, the political culture in a country can be an important contextual variable as it is stated for instance by Banaszak (1996). She distinguishes the political culture of Switzerland where consensus plays a major role from the political culture of the US. The emphasis of

consensus can lead to less reasons for parties to build alliances with social movements (Banaszak, 1996, p. 848). In a case study about the influence of protest movements on mining policies in Turkey, Özen and Özen (2010, p. 57) find that interactions between movements and political elites is influenced by the political culture, international dependencies, and the political system.

Luders (2016, p. 206) stresses not only the importance of public opinion and mass attentiveness for movement success, but also the absence or the weakness of a countermovement. Uba (2016) takes another point of view by focussing on the attitudes of targets, in her case Swedish municipal-level decision-makers in response to protests against school closures. She finds that the degree of understanding for different forms of protests varies across decision-makers. Female decision-makers are more open for “friendly” forms of protest, like petitioning and protests of parents during public meetings, while male targets have more understanding for parents visiting the homes of politicians and school strikes (Uba, 2016, p. 173). Moreover, incumbents in general and right-wing parties have less understanding towards all forms of protests than oppositional and left-wing or green parties (Uba, 2016, pp. 173–175).

To sum it up, research about contextual factors determining the success or failure of social movements in influencing policies is broad and multifaceted. An outstanding contribution to this often unstructured study field, was done by Almeida (2019, pp. 128–129). He put the most important success factors related to movement success together and structured them into movement strategy factors, external allies/coalitions, and political environment factors. The first category refers to features of the movement itself, more specifically framing strategies, disruptive or novel tactics, the size, and an enduring infrastructure (Almeida, 2019, pp. 128– 129). The second group of success factors describes the importance of external actors, like students, scientists, religious organizations, other social movements, oppositional political parties, mass media, and state actors (Almeida, 2019, pp. 128–129). By contrast, political environment factors stress the “right moment” of the emergence of social movements as crucial aspect. For instance, elite conflicts, public opinion, elite blunders, and countermovements can complicate or facilitate the success of social movements (Almeida, 2019, pp. 128–129). This categorization is also mentioned in chapter five to discuss possible reasons for the (limited) influence of FFF on policies in Germany.

2.2.3 Causal Mechanisms behind Social Movement Impact A third important subarea in the research about social movements and their consequences for policies is related to possible causal mechanisms. The central question at this point is: How do social movements influence public policies? There are several possible causal mechanisms linking social movement actions with influencing policies. One of the first attempts in this direction was made by Amenta et al. (1992). They distinguish between four models of movement outcomes. Economic models emphasize economic factors which affect policy outcomes directly on the one hand and social movement organization on the other hand (Amenta et al., 1992, p. 313). Social movement models stress the role of pre-existing organizations which influence social movement formation. In a second step, movement formation leads to collective action which again leads to policy outcomes in a third step (Amenta et al., 1992, p. 313). Political opportunity models highlight political opportunities which directly affect policy outcomes as well as social movement organization (Amenta et al., 1992, p. 313). Finally, the political mediation model stresses that the political context mediates the relationship between collective actions and policy outcomes (Amenta et al., 1992, p. 313). In all four models, Amenta et al. (1992, p. 313) emphasize the interplay of social movement organization and organizational maintenance. By studying the different mechanisms, Amenta et al. (1992) find strong support for the political mediation model and some support for the other mechanisms. This can be directly connected to the chapter about contextual factors as it indicates the importance of political conditions, for this case in particular democratic rights, open parties, state bureaus promoting public protection, and the rule of a labour party (Amenta et al., 1992, pp. 335–336).

By contrast, Andrews (2001) introduces other causal mechanisms: action-reaction models, the access-influence model, and the movement infrastructure model. Action-reaction models highlight the potential of movements to influence political elites, coalitions, or the public opinion (Andrews, 2001, p. 74). Movements have little direct influence, but they can mobilize other powerful actors or allies through dramatic events (Andrews, 2001, p. 75). Andrews (2001, pp. 74–75) stresses two versions of action-reaction models. The first version describes disruptive and threating events causing a response from political elites, in the form of either concessions and/or repression. The second version emphasizes sympathetic responses from third parties towards movement actions which increase the influence on political elites

(Andrews, 2001, p. 75). Access-influence models explain the process that social movements evolve into interest groups and use less disruptive tactics, for instance lobbying or electoral politics (Andrews, 2001, p. 75). This approach argues that “the determinant of movement efficacy is the acquisition of routine access to the polity through institutionalized tactics” (Andrews, 2001, p. 75). Finally, Andrews (2001, pp. 75–76) introduces the movement infrastructure model which takes three infrastructural factors of movements into account to explain its impact on the policy process. Successful movements should have a complex leadership structure and diverse leaders, the organizational structure should be multiple with informal ties crossing social and geographic boundaries, and they should have a strong resource base in terms of money and labour which is contributed by movement members (Andrews, 2001, p. 76). While the first three approaches focus only on one mechanism, the movement infrastructure model emphasizes multiple mechanisms through which movements should create impact (Andrews, 2001, p. 77). Andrews (2001) supports the movement infrastructure model and finds in particular evidence for the importance of the organizational capacity of social movements.

A different approach regarding causal mechanisms has been elaborated by Giugni (2007) who differentiates the direct-effect model, the indirect-effect model, and the joint-effect model. According to the direct-effect model, movements can have an effect on policies with their own forces and without external support (Giugni, 2007, p. 53). By contrast, the indirect-effect model stresses the role of the environment arguing that movements affect political alliances and the public opinion (Giugni, 2007, p. 53). This affected external environment influences in a second step policies (Giugni, 2007, p. 53). This approach has similarities with the action- reaction models of Andrews (2001). The third version of causal mechanism following Giugni (2007), the joint-effect model, emphasizes an interplay of movement mobilization, political allies or public opinion, or both of them, leading to an impact on policies (Giugni, 2007, pp. 53– 54). However, Giugni (2007, p. 54) takes a critical standpoint about the general success of social movements in influencing policies since they are minority actors with little power. He argues that if social movements have an effect on policies, they need to have external resources, especially public opinion and political allies (Giugni, 2007, p. 54). Thus, he states that the joint-effect model has most explanatory power (Giugni, 2007, p. 54). In his analysis, Giugni (2007) indeed finds some evidence for the joint-effect model, but no support for the other two mechanisms. The argument of Agnone (2007) goes in a similar direction. As already 12

mentioned in the part about contextual factors, he proposes and finds evidence for an amplification mechanism. The interplay of public opinion and protest activities is the crucial mechanism for a social movement for influencing policies (Agnone, 2007).

2.2.4 The Rise of Case Studies With the increasing importance of contextual factors for studying social movement success in influencing policies, case studies got more attention in the scientific debate in recent years. The core question in this part of research is: What is the impact of social movements in specific cases? The amount of scholarly work in this subarea of the literature has grown significantly and is multifaceted. Therefore, this paper mentions only a few examples. For instance, some authors analysed the impact of social movements in non-democratic political systems, like China (Almén & Burell, 2018; Deng, 1997). Other studies focussed on the influence of movements on the local level (Della Porta & Andretta, 2002; Vasconcellos & Vasconcellos, 2012). Almén and Burell (2018) combined the study fields of social movements and social accountability. They conclude that well-organized movements which invoke external allies and are in line with government policies are most likely to result in social accountability (Almén & Burell, 2018, p. 729). Furthermore, different kinds of movements have been examined, like women’s or feminist movements (Htun & Weldon, 2012) and environmental movements (Rucht, 1999). Amenta et al. (2010, p. 293) provide a good overview of different kinds of studied social movements. According to their list, especially civil right or black movements, feminism or women’s movements, and environmental movements have been studied most frequently. This paper contributes to the research of case studies by examining FFF which is a new case in the field of social movements.

3 Methods and Research Design

This chapter aims to shed light on the methods and the research design of the thesis. In a first step, the case selection is described. After that, I will outline the general methodological procedure. The third section introduces the method of measurement and the operationalization. The last step addresses the collection of data.

3.1 Case Selection

The goal of this paper is to examine the relatively young social movement FFF. Due to the limited volume and period of time of this thesis, it is reasonable to conduct a single in-depth case study. In this section, it has to be explained why the case of the German FFF was chosen out of the universe of cases. This is a crucial task because the case selection effects the results of an analysis directly.

The population of possible cases for the study consists of 228 countries where FFF is established (Fridays for Future, 2020f). The decision for Germany and therefore the German branch of FFF was made out of three reasons. Firstly, following the statistics of the movement, Germany is one of the biggest branches of FFF in terms of absolute and relative numbers (Fridays for Future, 2020f). In this sense, it can be considered as a crucial case according to Eckstein (1975). If FFF is in general successful in influencing policies, they should do so in Germany since the conditions for success are very good. In other words, Germany is a “most- likely case” (Eckstein, 1975). A second reason for the classification as a crucial case is the fact that Germany is a Western democracy where FFF has most widely spread and was founded (Fridays for Future, 2020f). Hence, the case of Germany is a good representative. The last reason for the case selection grounds on the fact that the author of the paper is a German native-speaker. Thus, he can collect and read German documents for conducting the case study.

3.2 Methodological Procedure

This research project answers the question whether FFF is successful in influencing policy change. Thereby, it tries to fill a research gap because the real impact and success of FFF in influencing policies was not studied so far. The independent variable of this analysis is the social movement FFF. The dependent variable is the success in influencing policy change. In order to measure the dependent variable a model by Almeida (2019, p. 126) is used which is introduced in chapter 3.3.

The core task of the case study is to analyse the new German policies on climate change in chapter four in order to examine whether FFF influenced German polices. For studying this, I start by presenting background for the German case as well as the new German policy on climate change; thereafter I proceed with an analysis where I evaluate whether this policy can

be said to have been influenced by FFF. The method used in the first two steps of the analysis, which focusses on establishing the level of contact and influence of FFF in relation to the German government, can be described as a form of process-tracing, where the aim is to establish a sequence of events (Collier, 2011).

In order to determine the third step of the analysis, I use foremost the methods of content analysis which analyses written, visual and verbal communication (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008, p. 107). The advantages of conducting a content analysis are the flexibility on methodological issues and the content-sensitiveness (Elo & Kyngäs, 2008, p. 108). The units of analysis to be compared are a document containing the demands of FFF (Fridays for Future, 2019a) and the document outlining the German government’s policy in the form of its climate protection programme, adopted in October 2019 (BMU, 2019b). The core questions for the content analysis are: 1) What is presented as the problem which should be solved? and 2) What is the specific content of the policy proposals? The second question is split into six parts since the demands of FFF consist of six issues which are presented in chapter four. Through the content analysis, every demand of the movement is compared with measures in the German policy. Every category is analysed in detail whether the demands of FFF are fulfilled, not fulfilled, or whether this question cannot be answered with guarantee.

Regarding the internal validity of the study, it faces typical problems of small-n research designs. Firstly, the cause (or independent variable) is difficult to manipulate (Gerring, 2017, pp. 197–202). Furthermore, the causal comparability of single case studies is very limited by its nature since the security from stochastic threats is low and there is no opportunity for statistical correction (Gerring, 2017, pp. 197–202). However, a strength of small-n case studies, including single case studies, is the observability (Gerring, 2017, pp. 202–206). This study strives for a high transparency and replicability by being open and clear about the research process and data. Chapter 3.4 makes transparent which content is used for the analysis. Every document is freely available. This high transparency leads to a high replicability because another author can use the same data and repeat the analysis. This enhances the reliability of the study.

The external validity is limited because the generalizability of this single case study is not high. However, a case study of the success of FFF in Germany has implications for the overall success of the movement. This is due to the fact that the German branch of FFF is one of the biggest 15

in terms of protest participants (Fridays for Future, 2020e; Rucht, 2019, p. 7). In this sense, Germany can be viewed as a crucial case as shown in chapter 3.1. If the movement is successful in Germany, future research should study smaller branches of FFF in other countries. Furthermore, it would imply that smaller movement branches in other democracies should keep their actions and try to grow to achieve their goals.

If the movement instead is not successful in Germany, the generalizability would be higher because it is unlikely that other branches of the movement which cannot be considered as a crucial case are more successful. Thus, one could conclude that the real impact of FFF is small so far. In doing so, the thesis fills a research gap to some extent since it is new to study the success of FFF in influencing national policies.

3.3 Measurement and Operationalization of Social Movement Success

Even though the measurement of success is a crucial part in studying social movements to guarantee comparability, there is no consistent method across the literature. When should we consider social movements as successful in influencing policies? Giugni (1998, pp. 382– 387) gives a good overview of different ways and attempts for measuring success. Again, the typology of Gamson (1990) is considered as highly influential at this point (Giugni, 1998, p. 382; Rochon & Mazmanian, 1993, p. 77). He distinguishes between two basic outcomes: The first form of success describes that movements gain new advantages, while the second form of success is the acceptance of a movement as valid representative for a set of interests by its opponents (Gamson, 1990; Giugni, 1998, p. 382). In the following, a huge body of literature took over, modified, or changed this classification of movement success. Moreover, the measurement of success was elaborated in more detail. For instance, Rochon and Mazmanian (1993, p. 77) added “changing social values” as a third dimension.

In order to measure the success of FFF in Germany, this paper relies on one of these detailed typologies by using the method of Almeida (2019, p. 126). He provides detailed tools for the studying of movement success and presents six different levels of success. This typology is a modified version of the approach of Burstein et al. (1995). They again relied on the five criteria of government responsiveness of Schumaker (1975) (access, agenda, policy, output, and impact responsiveness) and added structural effects as a sixth dimension. Hence, resting upon these two basic influential works of movement success, the six levels of Almeida (2019, p. 126)

are access responsiveness, agenda responsiveness, policy responsiveness, output responsiveness, impact responsiveness, and structural impacts (see Table 1). A movement is considered as successful when it reaches not less than the level of policy responsiveness (level three). This would mean that FFF significantly influenced German policies. Studying the success of FFF beyond level three is not possible so far since the social movement is very young (founded less than two years before writing this paper). Hence, it is not reasonable to examine for instance the implementation or the overall impact of the policy with validity. Thus, this paper is only a first attempt to study the impact of FFF. Examining level four to six could be subject of an analysis in a couple of years. However, if the movement would reach the level of policy responsiveness in such a short time frame, it would be an important and interesting finding.

Table 1: Levels of Movement Success; adapted from Almeida (2019, p. 126)

Level of Success Policy Change Examples No Success Ignored by political and Policy makers refuse to meet with economic elites social movement Level One Access Responsiveness Policy makers agree to meet and hear demands of social movement Level Two Agenda Responsiveness Policy makers place demands of social movement on agenda to be discussed Level Three Policy Responsiveness Policy makers formally approve policies in the form that movement originally requested Level Four Output Responsiveness Policy makers implement policies and affected parties effectively abide by it Level Five Impact Responsiveness There is a clear local impact of the new policies Level Six Structural Impacts There is a clear impact of the new policy measures on a broader level

The model of Almeida (2019, p. 126) is used because it is a transparent and simple way to study the impact of social movements. It provides clear criteria for each level which can be

answered with yes or no. To examine the actual impact of FFF, a binary variable is used. The dependent variable has the value y=1, when the criterion for the level is fulfilled. If a criterion is not met, the dependent variable has the value y=0.

Since all levels build upon each other in this model it makes no sense to study for instance level two when level one is not fulfilled. Hence, the analysis starts with level one and proceeds step by step. The first level, called access responsiveness is reached when the movement met official representatives. Therefore, for the present case, y1=1 if FFF met representatives of the German government. This is relatively easy to examine because either the movement met German officials or not. This system works in a similar way for the second and third level. Level two, agenda responsiveness, is fulfilled when officials placed the demands of the social movement on the agenda to discuss it. Thus, y2=1 if the claims of FFF are discussed within the government. Again, this issue can be answered with yes or no. Policy responsiveness on level three is reached when a policy is passed including most of the demands of the movement.

Applied for the present case, y3=1 if the new climate protection policies in Germany meet most of the demands of FFF. Since there are essentially six core demands of FFF in Germany (Fridays for Future, 2019a), at least four have to be fulfilled in the new Klimaschutzprogramm (climate protection programme) to reach level three. If the movement reaches level three by influencing German policies, it can be called successful.

3.4 Data Collection

This paper uses a different variety of data. Every source is freely available. The time period for the case study starts in March 2018 when a coalition agreement of the new German government was passed. The contract was between the conservative party CDU/CSU and the social-democratic SPD who already governed from 2013 to 2017. Even though this is before the foundation of FFF in August 2018, it is important because the coalition agreement is an important document for the analysis. The time period of the case study ends in accordance with writing this thesis in April 2020. Apart from the scientific literature, the study works with data from the homepage of the movement as well as newspaper articles. The first level of movement-generated policy success, access responsiveness, is analysed through newspaper articles and German government documents. The task for this level is to examine whether the movement and government officials met each other. A similar procedure is done for level two, agenda responsiveness. Media reports and statements of the German government are used 18

to answer the question whether FFF had an impact on the agenda of the German government. Furthermore, the coalition agreement (Bundesregierung, 2018) which was passed before the foundation of FFF is used for investigating whether the movement seems to have inspired the agenda setting of the climate protection policies or whether the policies were initially planned by the German government and FFF had no impact on it. The data for level three, policy responsiveness, consist of the demands of the movement which are available on its homepage (Fridays for Future, 2019a) and the climate protection programme of the German government (BMU, 2019b). These two documents are systematically compared to examine whether and to what extent the demands of FFF have been taken over by the German government. This part of the methods can be described as a qualitative content analysis.

A possible alternative method to the analysis of documents and newspaper articles would have been interviews with key decision-makers in the German government. The decision against conducting interviews with officials was two-fold. Firstly, interviews can be biased since they often reflect own opinions. For instance, politicians can tend to promote their own policies by arguing that demands of social movements are fulfilled. Activists on the other hand can tend to underestimate decisions of officials. The second reason against interviews is the short period of time for conducting this research project as well as restrictions due to the coronavirus pandemic.

So far, this paper presented the theoretical background of social movements and the research design for answering the research question whether FFF was successful in influencing policies in Germany. More specifically, I introduced a method to measure the success of social movements and operationalized which indicators are decisive for studying the present case. In the next section, I analyse the case of FFF in Germany. First, I give an overview of the German branch of FFF; thereafter I present the German climate protection programme and proceed with the analysis of the different levels of success.

4 Fridays for Future in Germany: Has the Movement had Policy Success?

This chapter consists of the case study of FFF in Germany. After giving an overview of the movement in Germany and presenting the climate protection programme, it proceeds with the analysis of the three levels of success, access responsiveness, agenda responsiveness, and policy responsiveness.

4.1 The Movement in Germany

Founded in August 2018 by the fifteen years old Swedish pupil Greta Thunberg, FFF soon developed into an international movement (Fridays for Future, 2020g). Every Friday, young activists run a school strike in order to demand politicians to pass policies which provide a safe pathway to keep the global warming under two degrees in line with the Paris agreement (Fridays for Future, 2020g). According to own numbers of FFF, there have been 212,000 strike events with 13 million strikers in 228 countries and 7,500 cities (Fridays for Future, 2020e). The goal of the movement is to target policymakers putting pressure on them to decarbonize the global economy (Fridays for Future, 2020g). The movement perceives itself as independent and global and emphasizes collectivity: “Every day there are more of us and together we are strong. Everyone is welcome. Everyone is needed. No one is too small to make a difference” (Fridays for Future, 2020g).

Highlighting collectivity is typical for social movements as shown in chapter 2.1. The second core characteristic of movements is that they usually consist of relatively powerless groups. This criterion is also met by FFF since the movement is underpinned by pupils and students who are not part of any institutionalized power, albeit there is a growing number of older participants (Koos & Lauth, 2019). The movement seeks social change and targets directly political elites (Fridays for Future, 2020a). Since it started 2018, it is not a short term but sustained interaction in the sense that FFF actions are not only limited to a short time range. This indicates that FFF clearly meets the definition of a social movement.

The overriding goals of FFF defined in August 2019, are as follows: “1) keep the global temperature rise below 1.5 degrees compared to pre-industrial levels, 2) ensure climate justice and equity, 3) listen to the best united science currently available” (Fridays for Future, 2020d). The movement encourages members to get in touch with the media to spread its 20

messages (Fridays for Future, 2020b). Moreover, there are several possibilities to join the movement without participating in strikes every Friday, for instance by using social media platforms (Fridays for Future, 2020b). FFF dedicates itself to a strike culture which is based on seven main principles (Fridays for Future, 2020b): “No violence; No property damage; No littering; No profit; No hate; Minimize your carbon footprint; Always refer to science”.

FFF notably emerged in Germany in early 2019 and soon developed into one of the biggest branches of the movement in absolute as well as relative terms (Fridays for Future, 2020f; Koos & Naumann, 2019, p. 3). At 15 March 2019, 300,000 participants in 222 demonstrations joint FFF in Germany (Koos & Naumann, 2019, p. 3). On average, the protesters are relatively young, well-educated and predominantly female (Wahlström et al., 2019, pp. 70–71; Wahlström et al., 2020, p. 14). FFF perceives itself as a non-partisan movement (Fridays for Future, 2019a). The most famous member of FFF in Germany is Luisa Neubauer, often titled as “German Greta” (Kittlitz, 2020). Neubauer is considered as highly influential since she is very present in German media (Kittlitz, 2020; Neubauer, 2019). There are essentially six core demands of FFF in Germany, presented in April 2019 (Fridays for Future, 2019a): zero net emissions until 2035; no coal production until 2030; one hundred percent renewable energy supply until 2035; no subsidies for fossil energy sources from now on; immediately turn off one quarter of all coal-fired power stations; and a tax on carbon dioxide for all greenhouse gas emissions of 180 Euros per ton CO2. Apart from strikes every Friday, representatives of FFF are often present in German media, for instance in well-known talk shows (Rucht, 2019, p. 8). During the corona virus pandemic, the movement focusses on other strike opportunities than school strikes, like digital strikes (Kittlitz, 2020).

To sum it up, FFF is a good example for a global social movement. The German branch of the movement is notably big and successful in being present in the media. Whether the movement is successful beyond this media attention is investigated below.

4.2 The German Climate Protection Programme

The Klimaschutzprogramm 2030 (climate protection programme 2030) is the central document for the analysis in this paper. The policy was elaborated by the “climate cabinet”, a group consisting of Chancellor Angela Merkel and several ministers. It was adopted in October 2019 (BMU, 2019b) and concretizes an older Klimaschutzplan 2050 (climate protection plan

2050) from 2015. The programme was highly anticipated by the public. For instance, in an interview with one of the biggest German newspapers, Vice Chancellor and finance minister Olaf Scholz said that the government needs great success in climate politics “if we want to have the right to lead the country” (Hickmann et al., 2019). He also stated that little steps in climate politics are not enough (Hickmann et al., 2019).

The policy contains a lot of measures to achieve the German climate protection goals of reducing 55 percent of greenhouse gas emissions until 2030 compared to numbers of 1990 (Bundesregierung, 2019c, pp. 1–2). These separate measures are implemented step by step by different laws (Bundesregierung, 2019c, p. 1). This procedure is not exceptional in German politics. The first law for the implementation of some aspects of the climate protection programme is called Bundes-Klimaschutzgesetz (Federal Climate Protection Law) and was passed in December 2019 (KSG, 2019). It contains the “55 percent goal” as well as the goal to achieve greenhouse gas neutrality until 2050 and a climate-neutral federal administration until 2030. Moreover, it formulates emission targets for every economic sector and determines regularly reporting about the success of the measures.

However, it is more reasonable to focus on the policy since this document is more comprehensive than single laws. Furthermore, the implementation of policies is not subject of this analysis. The crucial elements of the policy are a pricing of CO2 in the transport and building sectors, several funding programs which promote climate protection, easing the burden of citizens, for instance by reducing the price of electricity, funding programs and measures for climate-friendly building of houses, programs to promote electromobility and public transport, measures for climate-friendly agriculture, a successive exit of coal-fired generation simultaneously with an expansion of renewable energies, and an intensified promotion of research and development regarding innovative solutions for climate protection (Bundesregierung, 2019c, pp. 2–10). To put it in a nutshell, the climate protection programme consists of funding programs to reduce CO2, a systematic pricing of CO2 and a relief for citizens (Klimakabinett, 2019, p. 3). The last point can be considered as a way to make the policy more popular.

In the rest of this chapter, I proceed to analyse whether the new German climate policy can be said to be the result of FFF. Three levels of policy impact are analysed: access

responsiveness (level one); agenda responsiveness (level two), and policy responsiveness (level three).

4.3 Access Responsiveness

As shown in chapter three, the first level of impact for a social movement identified by Almeida (2019, p. 126) is called “access responsiveness” and refers to some type of a meeting between

FFF and government officials. The dependent variable y1=1 if FFF met representatives of the German government in order to voice their demands. This is not very easy to examine. Even though FFF was subject of many debates in the media and across all important parties (Rucht, 2019, p. 4; Wahlström et al., 2019, p. 69), there was no official dialogue between the German government and FFF as such. The German minister of the environment, Svenja Schulze, used many opportunities to praise and show solidarity with FFF. For instance, in her speech at the German parliament she said:

“I think it is good, when the reputed unpolitical generation voice their demands and protest on the streets. This is democracy. (…) And they are right: We cannot live at the expense of other or next generations (…).” (own translation from Schulze, 2019)

This holds in a similar way for Chancellor Angela Merkel who also praised the protestors (Wahlström et al., 2019, p. 69). Furthermore, the press officer of the ministry of environment, Stephan Gabriel Haufe, said in a press conference at 10 April 2019 that the ministry wants to invite members of FFF to the Aktionsbündnis Klimaschutz (active alliance for climate protection), a regularly discussion board about climate protection issues, two days later in order to let them voice their arguments (Haufe, 2019). However, considering the protocol of this discussion board, there were no members of FFF, albeit the movement is mentioned six times in the document (Aktionsbündnis Klimaschutz, 2019). Instead, Luisa Sandkühler, a member of the WWF youth organisation, expressed the opinions of FFF. Even though the WWF youth organisation supports FFF, for instance by invoking its members to join the Friday protests (WWF Jugend, 2019), it is another organisation. Thus, one can argue that German politicians talk a lot about, but not with FFF. Another indication for that can be seen in the fact that the Aktionsbündnis Klimaschutz announced the involvement of youth associations for future meetings of the discussion board without specifically inviting FFF (BMU, 2019a).

However, Svenja Schulze in her position as German minister of the environment sporadically met representatives of FFF. For instance, at 23 August 2019, she discussed climate protection issues with representatives of the movement at the University of Münster (Kalitschke, 2019). Another example is reported for 20 January 2020 when Schulze met climate activists of FFF in the German state of Saarland (Mayer, 2020). Thus, she met FFF before as well as after the passing of the climate protection programme in October 2019. As the minister of the environment, she is an official representative of the German government. Therefore, despite there was no broad public dialogue between them and the government, it can be argued that y1=1, or in other words, that FFF reached the level of access responsiveness in Germany.

4.4 Agenda Responsiveness

The second level of policy success in the model of Almeida (2019, p. 126) is called “agenda responsiveness” and refers to establishing that a social movement can be demonstrated to have had impact over a political actors’ agenda. The level of agenda responsiveness can be said to be y2=1 if it can be established that German officials placed the demands of FFF on the political agenda to discuss it because of the activities of the movement. Prima facie, it seems clear that FFF was successful in setting the agenda in Germany. The protests of the movement caused a big debate in Germany about climate protection during the year 2019. Sommer et al. (2019, p. 40) state that FFF set the agenda in German media and the general public. Rucht (2019, p. 5) mentions the extraordinary media presence of the movement in Germany. Other studies show a broad societal support for FFF (Koos & Naumann, 2019). In October 2019, the German government passed a “climate protection programme 2030” (BMU, 2019b). In December 2019, the German government passed a law “for the implementation of a federal climate protection law” (KSG, 2019). These facts all seem to confirm that the demands of FFF have been placed on the agenda.

However, there are also some indications that FFF is not the cause for the agenda setting of climate protection issues, especially considering the coalition agreement of the governing parties, the conservative CDU/CSU and the social-democratic SPD. In this document, the coalition announced the passing of an “action programme” for climate protection as well as a law to ensure the climate protection laws until 2030 (Bundesregierung, 2018, pp. 142–143). Since the coalition agreement was passed in March 2018, it was before the foundation of FFF in August 2018. Hence, the passing of these policies was not out of the impact of the 24

movement. Already in 2015, the German government had formulated a climate protection plan 2050 (Klimaschutzplan 2050) (Wahlström et al., 2020, p. 118). The purpose of the climate protection programme 2030 was to formulate short-term goals more explicitly.

Despite of that, it can be argued that y2=1 because the demands of FFF have been discussed within the German government, or in other words, FFF has set the agenda. One indication for that is the fact that there was a debate in the German parliament about FFF at 15 March 2019 with a speech of Germans minister of the environment, Svenja Schulze (Schulze, 2019) (see previous chapter). Another indication is that “climate protection” is mentioned on the agenda of six cabinet meetings between January 2019 and April 2020 (06 February 2019; 20 March 2019; 25 September 2019; 09 October 2019; 16 October 2019; 13 November 2019) (Bundesregierung, 2018-2020). By contrast, “climate protection” is only mentioned once in the entire year 2018 (13 June 2018) (Bundesregierung, 2018-2020). This clearly indicates that climate protection issues have been set on the agenda of the German cabinet more often after the emergence of FFF. Furthermore, the fact that the German government built up a so-called “climate cabinet” is a strong indication for the agenda setting of FFF since this was not mentioned in the coalition agreement. This climate cabinet started its work in April 2019 and consists of Chancellor Angela Merkel, minister of the environment Svenja Schulze, finance minister Olaf Scholz, interior minister Horst Seehofer, economic minister Peter Altmaier, minister of agriculture Julia Klöckner, transport minister Andreas Scheuer, minister of special affairs and head of the office of the German Chancellery Helge Braun, and government spokesman Steffen Seibert (Bundesregierung, 2019b). The climate cabinet elaborated the climate protection programme which is analysed in more detail in the next section.

Furthermore, the chapter about a “responsible use of resources” is one of the last and one of the shortest chapters in the coalition agreement. In this sense, it was not an important issue for the government prior to the foundation of FFF. The topic of climate protection comprises only about one page out of 175 pages and is formulated in a vague way. Thus, one can conclude that there is not an emphasis on climate protection issues in the coalition agreement of March 2018 (Bundesregierung, 2018, pp. 142–143).

In sum, it is clear that issues of climate protection have been discussed more intensively within the government in 2019 than initially intended in the coalition agreement from 2018. It seems reasonable to believe that the high level of visibility of FFF in the media during the year 2019 25

is the reason behind this. This view is confirmed by Chancellor Angela Merkel who said in August 2019 that the pupils “are right when they put pressure on us” (Sommer et al., 2019, p. 37). In the same month, she told young activists that they made the government approach the task of climate protection more purposeful (Sommer et al., 2019, p. 37). Hence, y2=1 since the demands of FFF have been placed on the agenda to discuss it.

4.5 Policy Responsiveness

The third level of policy success for a social movement according to the model of Almeida

(2019, p. 126) is “policy responsiveness”. This level can be said to be reached (y3=1) if the German climate protection programme (presented in chapter 4.2) is found to fulfil at least four of the six central demands made by FFF (BMU, 2019b; Fridays for Future, 2019a). FFF formulated their six core demands for German politicians already in 8 April 2019 (Süddeutsche Zeitung, 2019). They are as follows (Fridays for Future, 2019a): zero net emissions until 2035; no coal production until 2030; one hundred percent renewable energy supply until 2035; no subsidies for fossil energy sources from now on; immediately turn off one quarter of all coal- fired power stations; and a tax on carbon dioxide for all greenhouse gas emissions of 180 Euros per ton CO2.

The first question of the analysis asks what policy problems are seen as being solved with the climate policies. In their statement, FFF presents the problem as a climate crisis with an existential threat to millions of human beings and that there is little time to prevent the surpassing of the tipping points when there is no opportunity anymore to prevent a global warming of more than 1.5 degrees (Fridays for Future, 2019a). The government’s climate protection programme formulates the problem in a similar way. It is said that climate protection is a global challenge and that there have to be quick and resolute actions to limit the increase of the global earth temperature (BMU, 2019b, p. 7). The climate protection policy also states the goal to prevent a global warming of more than two degrees, preferably not more than 1.5 degrees in line with the Paris agreement (BMU, 2019b, p. 7; United Nations Climate Change, 2015). In sum, there is a high similarity in the formulation of problems in both documents.

The second step of the content analysis asks about the specific content of both policy documents. This analysis is divided into six parts since FFF placed six distinct policy demands

on the government in order to reach the goal to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees. Thus, the first question is: Have the demands of FFF and the measures of the climate protection programme the same goal when Germany must have zero net emissions? This question can be answered with “no”. FFF clearly demands that Germany reaches the goal of zero net emissions until 2035 whereas the climate protection programme wants to achieve this goal until 2050 (BMU, 2019b, p. 7; Fridays for Future, 2019a). Hence, a clear difference between the demands of FFF and the government’s policy can be observed. Furthermore, the German policy states the goal of a reduction of 55 percent (compared to figures of 1990) of all greenhouse gases until 2030 (BMU, 2019b, p. 14). Therefore, the goals of the climate protection programme are far from the demands of FFF.

The second question focusses on the coal production in Germany. The question is: Have the demands of FFF and the measures of the climate protection programme the same goal when Germany must have no coal production anymore? Again, this question can be clearly answered with “no”. While FFF wants no coal production from 2030 on, the climate protection programme formulates the goal to get out of the coal production 2038 at the latest (BMU, 2019b, p. 34; Fridays for Future, 2019a). Therefore, the demands of FFF and the planned measures of the German policy are not identical, albeit they are referring to the same topic.

Thirdly, it is asked whether the demands of FFF and the measures of the climate protection programme are similar in terms of renewable energy supply until 2035. This question is difficult to answer. FFF wants that there should be one hundred percent renewable energy supply by 2035 (Fridays for Future, 2019a), while the analysed policy mentions the goal of 65 percent renewable energy supply by 2030 (BMU, 2019b, p. 37). Since the target year is not the same, it is not possible to answer this question with a clear “no”. However, there is a big difference between 65 percent renewable energy supply in 2030 and one hundred percent only five years later in 2035.

Regarding the fourth point, it is asked whether the demands of FFF and the measures of the climate protection programme are similar in terms of subsidies for fossil energy sources. This question must be answered with “no”. FFF wants to abolish every subsidies for fossil energy sources immediately (Fridays for Future, 2019a). However, this demand was not picked up in any sense by the German policy since there is no indication of an abolishment of subsidies for

fossil energy sources in the document (BMU, 2019b). Therefore, this demand is clearly not fulfilled.

The fifth question is: Are the demands of FFF and the measures of the climate protection programme similar with respect to which amount of coal-fired power stations must be turned off at what time? This aspect might have the highest similarity of all six. FFF demands an immediate turn off of 25 percent of all coal-fired power stations (Fridays for Future, 2019a). This is not mentioned explicitly in the climate protection programme as a fixed goal, but by doing an own calculation about the planned turn off of coal-fired power stations in the climate protection programme, it can be resulted that 21 percent of all brown coal power stations and 30 percent of all hard coal power stations should be turned off until 2022 (BMU, 2019b, p. 34). These numbers are very similar to the demands of FFF. However, it is not “immediately” but between 2019 and 2022. One could argue that the word “immediately” gives a bit of a scope, but FFF made clear that “immediately” is meant in the sense of a turn off until the end of 2019 (Fridays for Future, 2019a). This is clearly not reached. Hence, this question has rather to be answered with “no” than “yes”.

The sixth demand of FFF refers to a tax on carbon dioxide. The question of this aspect of the content analysis is: Are the demands of FFF and the measures of the climate protection programme similar in terms of a tax on carbon dioxide? This question can be clearly answered with “no”. FFF relied on numbers of the Umweltbundesamt, the central environmental agency of Germany, which recommended a tax of 180 Euros per ton CO2 (Fridays for Future, 2019a). This tax level is far from the measures of the German policy. Instead, the climate protection programme determined an increasing price per ton CO2 of 10 Euros from 2021 on, 20 Euros from 2022 on, 25 Euros from 2023 on, 30 Euros from 2024 on, and 35 Euros from 2025 on (BMU, 2019b, pp. 24–25). However, these numbers must be analysed with caution because they were changed in December 2019 because of the demands of the German states. The mediation committee of the two German parliaments (Bundestag and Bundesrat) determined a tax level of 25 Euros per ton CO2 from 2021 on, with a stepwise increase until 55 Euros in 2025 and between 55 and 65 Euros until 2026 (Bundesregierung, 2019a). Despite of these changes, the price per ton CO2 is far from the demands of FFF. Thus, this question has to be answered with “no”.

Table 2 gives an overview of the demands of FFF and the policy measures of the climate protection programme. To sum up the content analysis, it is clear that y3=0, or in other words, that FFF cannot be said to have reached this level. Even though the problem formulation is similar between FFF and the German climate protection programme, the movement did not reach the level of policy responsiveness since five out of six demands of the movement were not fulfilled in the German climate protection programme. One aspect cannot be answered with guarantee. Therefore, it can be concluded that the movement was not successful in influencing policy change in Germany. This is confirmed by the fact that the name of “FFF” is not mentioned in the climate protection programme and the policy does not refer to the movement.

Table 2: Fulfilment of the Demands of FFF in the German Climate Protection Programme

Demands of FFF Measures of climate protection Demands programme fulfilled?

Zero net emissions until 2035 Zero net emissions until 2050; No Reduction of 55% until 2030 (compared to 1990) No coal production until 2030 No coal production until 2038 No

100% renewable energy supply 65% renewable energy supply ? until 2035 until 2030 No subsidies for fossil energy Not mentioned No sources from now on Immediately turn off 25% of all Until 2022: turn off 21% of No coal-fired power stations brown and 30% of hard coal- fired power stations Immediately tax on carbon Tax on carbon dioxide of 25€ No

dioxide of 180€ per ton CO2 (2021), 55€ (2025), 55€-65€

(2026) per ton CO2

This result can be validated by considering the reactions of FFF after the climate protection programme was passed. In an open letter at 4 October 2019, FFF directly addressed the

leaders of the governing parties and the members of the climate cabinet who elaborated the climate protection programme (Fridays for Future, 2019b). In this letter, they call the passed policy a “political bankruptcy” and accuse the government to ignore the Paris agreement and its goals as well as the demands of young people, the science, and wide parts of the society (Fridays for Future, 2019b). Furthermore, FFF state that the measures of the climate protection programme are “ridiculous” and that the government is still in a “deep sleep mode” with a “snail’s pace” in terms of climate protection policies (Fridays for Future, 2019b). Thus, according to FFF, the government “failed miserably” in pointing the way for more climate protection. The movement concludes in its letter: “The climate movement is bigger as never before (…). We strike, until you take actions” (Fridays for Future, 2019b). In this sense, FFF does clearly not perceive its task as done and wants to keep on striking. The next chapter discusses the findings of this research project and focusses in particular on the question why FFF failed to have a policy impact in the German case and which explanatory factors account for this.

5 Discussion: Why only limited Success?

The result of the analysis in the previous chapter is that FFF had only limited success in influencing policies in Germany. The movement reached only the levels of access responsiveness and agenda responsiveness, but not the level of policy responsiveness. Even though the formulation of problems is similar between the German climate protection programme and the demands of FFF, the measures are very different in the two documents. How can those findings be understood? To answer this question is the aim of this section.

By taking the literature about contextual factors into account, an interesting puzzle emerges. As described in chapter 2.2.2, Almeida (2019, pp. 128–129) identifies several possible factors that can explain variance in the success of social movements. He clusters them into three categories: movement strategy factors, external allies/coalitions, and political environment factors. If we consider these points for the German case, it seems like FFF fulfilled virtually all requirements that would lead to success in influencing policies. For the first category, movement strategy, it can be noted for instance, that FFF uses inclusive framing strategies by calling for the participation of other social groups and sub-groups like “Grandmothers for Future” (Wahlström et al., 2020, p. 118). They also connect the man-made climate change as

the cause to the problem of global warming (Fridays for Future, 2019a) and use disruptive or novel tactics by ignoring compulsory education every Friday. According to Almeida (2019, pp. 128–129), all these strategy factors are conductive to movement success. The same holds for an enduring infrastructure in the sense of sustained local resources (Almeida, 2019, p. 128). This can also be seen as fulfilled by considering that FFF has more than 500 local groups in Germany (Fridays for Future, 2020c).

A similar picture can be drawn for the second category as FFF seems to have many external allies or coalitions. The movement is carried by young people and students (Koos & Naumann, 2019, p. 3) and is supported by scientists (Scientists for Future, 2020), the most important religious organizations (Ökumenisches Netzwerk Klimagerechtigkeit), and other social movements or organizations like Greenpeace or WWF (Wahlström et al., 2020, p. 118). Furthermore, there are state actors like the central environmental agency (Umweltbundesamt) (Krause, 2019) and oppositional parties like Bündnis 90/Die Grünen (The Greens) and Die Linke (The Leftist) who expressed sympathy for FFF (Die Linke, 2019; Wahlström et al., 2019, p. 69). Thus, it seems counterintuitive that FFF had only limited success in Germany if we take movement strategy factors and external allies into account.

However, the findings of this paper might be explained by considering the third category of Almeida (2019, p. 129), political environment factors. As can be recalled from chapter two, several of these factors referred to the role of political elites. Almeida (2019, p. 129) argues that a social movement’s success would be more likely in cases where elite groups are in conflict with one another since this makes the political system more vulnerable. Furthermore, mistakes by elites can bring more support for movements and damage elite targets (Almeida, 2019, p. 129). He also stated that public support is an important factor for movement success (Almeida, 2019, p. 129). Even though the public opinion seems to be beneficial in the German case (Koos & Naumann, 2019, pp. 4–5), I cannot observe an elite conflict or major mistakes by political elites in Germany. Thus, this could be one reason for the limited success of FFF in this country. This leads to a dilemma since FFF seems to make most of the things they can influence right in the sense that they seem to apply a good strategy and successfully seek for important allies. However, the political environment, which is harder to influence, seems not to be beneficial for the movement in Germany. Therefore, one might conclude drawing on the model of Almeida (2019, pp. 128–129) that the limited success is not the fault of FFF but rather

“force majeure”. Future research should study these success factors more systematically and examine whether certain factors – for instance, elite conflict or mistakes by elites – can be seen as necessary conditions for movement success.

The findings in this study might be also explained with the arguments of Soule and King (2006, pp. 1896–1897) who state that social movements in general matter more in the earlier stages of the policy process since legislators can introduce bills in the agenda-setting process because of movement pressures with low consequences. This fits for the findings of this study since FFF reached the level of agenda responsiveness, which is an early point in the policy process, but failed to reach a level beyond that. By contrast, Rochon and Mazmanian (1993) can provide a more optimistic picture for FFF. They argue that many movements do not effect policy change directly, but can gain access to the policy process and can have an indirect impact on the long-term (Rochon & Mazmanian, 1993). As mentioned before, future research should analyse such success factors more systematically for case studies.

The longer-term view of Rochon and Mazmanian (1993) leads directly to a possible limitation of the findings of this paper. Since FFF is a young movement, it might be too early to examine the real success of the movement. Hence, it is important to do a similar study in a couple of years in order to validate or invalidate my findings. It is also possible, of course, that the model of Almeida (2019) for measuring the success of social movements fails to capture some elements of the case of FFF in Germany. His six levels of success do not, for instance, take the variable time into account. Furthermore, the method of examining similarity between the documents with either “yes” or “no” might be overly simplistic and thereby distort the findings of this paper, albeit it is the easiest and most clear-cut way. Instead of evaluating whether the demands of FFF and the measures of the climate protection programme are either similar or not, a more nuanced grading of similarities would perhaps lead to more precise results. This becomes especially important for the fifth demand of FFF, where the goal of a turn off of coal- fired power stations seems to be relatively similar to measures of the German government. However, since they are not completely similar, it is concluded that the demands of FFF are not fulfilled at this point. It seems reasonable to develop a more nuanced grading of similarities for future studies.

6 Conclusion

This paper focussed on the study of social movements and their influence on policies. More specifically, the aim of this project was to answer the research question whether the social movement FFF was successful in influencing policies in Germany. The six levels of success of Almeida (2019, p. 126) were used to measure the success of the social movement. The case study in Germany shows that the success of FFF was only limited since it reached only level one and two, access responsiveness and agenda responsiveness, and failed to influence German policies (policy responsiveness). Most of the demands of FFF are not fulfilled in the German climate protection programme. By taking the literature on possible success factors for social movements into account, an interesting puzzle emerges. Despite most factors seem to be fulfilled by FFF leading to the prediction that the movement should be successful in influencing policy change, the real policy impact was only limited. However, the political environment in Germany did not seem to be conductive to FFF which could be one reason for the failed impact. This is problematic for FFF because the political environment is very hard to influence by the movement. Since Germany is a crucial case with technically good conditions for success of FFF, one can conclude that the general success of FFF is small so far. However, scholarly debate could benefit from more in-depth case studies about the influence of FFF in other countries. This would lead to an increased validity in the assessment whether this popular international movement is successful apart from its media attendance.

7 References

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