Climate Action, Now? : A Comparative Case Study of Protests from the Early Dutch Environmental Movement to Protests from the Contemporary Dutch Environmental Movement

Abstract: This study compares repertoire and framing between two protests in the early Dutch environmental movement and two protests in the modern Dutch environmental movement. The aim of the study is to find differences and similarities between the two time periods the protests take place in. The four cases are studied using the comparative case study method, specifically doing a historical comparison. In each case, the theoretical concepts of repertoire and framing are analyzed. Each case is studied through a qualitative analysis of archival and secondary sources, including newspaper articles, publications and social media posts. Using the theoretical concepts of framing and repertoire, several similarities and differences are found between the four cases. All four cases use the frame of the threat to human health in their campaigns and aimed for a low threshold for people to join their campaigns. Frames differed more across campaigns with different topics than across campaigns from different time periods. In repertoire, cases differed across time periods more than within time periods. The contemporary cases focus on commitment by showing the willingness to bear great personal risk, whereas the historical cases focus on showcasing their worthiness through alliances with strategic actors. Overall, the comparative historical analysis employed in this research reveals that there are greater differences between time periods when it comes to repertoire than in framing, showing that repertoire is defined more by time period than framing for the chosen cases.