Environmental Activism- a Threatening Outside? A Discourse Analysis of a Non-violent Civil Disobedience Protest in Stockholm, Sweden

Abstract: This study examines the identity construction of environmental activists in discourse following a political protest in Stockholm, Sweden. More specifically it aims to understand how environmental activists have been subjected to securitisation, and what underlying ideology supports this perception. It follows the poststructuralist assumption that language is not objective nor fixed and is instead vital in producing and reproducing political and social reality. Hence, through qualitative research of political statements, newspaper articles, and debates this study finds that environmental activists have been depicted as operating ‘outside’ of formal politics in dominant discourse. The portrayal of environmental activists as a ‘constitutive outside’ has also worked as a prerequisite for them to be subjected to securitisation – viewed as posing fundamental threats to hegemonic ideas of what constitutes legitimate protest. Often this notion is guided by deliberative democracy as the rational way of politics. These findings were emphasised using signifying chains to comprehend how environmental activists are seen as ‘deviant’ in dominant discourse. Along with this, neoliberal ideology seems a vital component in the creation of what constitute legitimate political activity.