Frame Disputes or Frame Consensus? “Environment” or “Welfare” First Amongst Climate Strike Protesters

Present debates suppose a close linkage between economic, social, and environmental sustainability and suggest that individual wellbeing and living standards need to be understood as directly linked to environmental concerns. Because social movements are often seen as an avant-garde in pushing for change, this article analyzes climate protesters’ support for three key frames in current periods of social transformation, i.e., an “environmental”, an “economic growth”, and a “welfare” frame. The analyzed data material consists of survey responses from over 900 participants in six Global Climate Strikes held in Sweden during 2019. The article investigates the explanatory relevance of three factors: (a) political and ideological orientation, (b) movement involvement, and (c) social characteristics. The results indicate that climate protesters to a large degree support an environmental frame before an economic growth-oriented frame, whereas the situation is more complex regarding support for a welfare frame vis-á-vis an environmental frame. The strongest factors explaining frame support include social characteristics (gender) and protestors’ political and ideological orientation. Movement involvement has limited significance. The article shows how these frames form a fragment of the complexity of these issues, and instances of frame distinctions, hierarchies, and disputes emerge within the most current forms of climate change demonstrations.

Alternative Dispute Resolution

Conflicts often emerge during resource and environmental management, but can be positive as well as negative. Positive aspects occur when conflict helps to identify ineffective processes, highlights poorly developed ideas or inadequate information, and reveals misunderstandings. In contrast, conflict can be negative if it is ignored or consciously set aside and leads to misunderstanding and mistrust. This chapter turns first to the nature of disputes, with particular attention to the concept of intractability, as well as how to frame disputes. Four different ways of dealing with disputes are reviewed, with special attention to conditions or factors necessary or desirable for effective use of alternative dispute resolution (ADR). Case studies consider limits for selenium in Colorado, and experiences of women mining activists in Peru and Ecuador. The guest statement by Jeroen Warner analyzes experience with multistakeholder dispute resolution processes for water in the Netherlands.

Breaking the frame: frame disputes of war and peace

Frames guide the way in which organizations and individuals interpret their surrounding contexts and shape avenues for thought, action, and behavior. This paper tests the individual-level effects of experiencing ‘frame disputes’: the state of holding individual-level frames that are at odds with dominant organizational frames. We hypothesize that on the individual level a frame dispute will be associated with negative effects on outcomes important for an organization’s functioning. The hypothesis is tested using a survey of a battalion of Italian soldiers. Our results demonstrate that, on average, soldiers who experienced frame disputes in that they perceived their mission differently from the dominant organizational frame displayed significantly lower levels of perceived cohesion, performance, and legitimacy. Frame disputes are likely to be widespread phenomena among organizations and social movements, and understanding their effects has theoretical, empirical, and policy relevance beyond the military case under study.