Rich kids of Europe? Social basis and strategic choices in the climate activism of Fridays for Future

In 2018, Swedish teenager Greta Thunberg began a school strike that quickly spread across the globe. After a ritual strike every Friday by school pupils to call for urgent action against climate change had gone on for several months, what had become Fridays for Future (FFF) called for various global days of action throughout 2019, bringing millions of people out onto the streets in the largest climate protests in world history. Drawing on unique protest survey data on FFF events across European cities in 2019, this article explores the structural bases of organized collective mobilization for climate justice. Nuancing narratives that focus on either the privileged background of climate justice protesters or the environmentalism of the poor, our results show the heterogeneity of the social composition of the protests, suggesting the need for cross-class alliances for mass mobilizations. Moreover, our analysis reveals that the social background of protesters shaped their attitudes regarding what institutions and approaches can be relied upon to tackle climate and environmental challenges. This suggests an important and under-studied connection between social background and the strategic choices of environmental movements.

National Identities and Nation-building

This chapter demonstrates just how preoccupied contemporary liberal democracies are with the impact of immigration on social cohesion, and how they have responded to such concerns with nation-building policies and an emphasis on shared values. More specifically, four country cases are considered, namely Canada, Denmark, France, and the UK. Similarities and differences in how they have responded to concerns about diversity and social cohesion are explained. These responses invoke nation-building, relying to various degrees on nationalist, liberal, republican, and multicultural community conceptions, that is, conceptions of the social basis for intergroup relations and cooperation.

The Politics of Social Cohesion

In contemporary liberal democracies, it is difficult to find a policy issue as divisive as immigration. A common worry is that immigration poses a threat to social cohesion, and so to the social unity that underpins cooperation, stable democratic institutions, and a robust welfare state. At the heart of this worry is the suggestion that social cohesion requires a shared identity at the societal level. The Politics of Social Cohesion considers in greater detail the impact of immigration on social cohesion and egalitarian redistribution. First, it critically scrutinizes an influential argument, according to which immigration leads to ethnic diversity, which again tends to undermine trust and solidarity and so the social basis for redistribution. According to this argument, immigration should be severely restricted. Second, it considers the suggestion that, in response to worries about immigration, states should promote a shared identity to foster social cohesion in the citizenry. It is argued that the effects of immigration on social cohesion do not need to compromise social justice and that core principles of liberty and equality not only form the normative basis for just policies of immigration and integration, as a matter of empirical fact, they are also the values that, if shared, are most likely to produce the social cohesion among community members providing the social basis for implementing justice. This argument draws heavily on both normative political philosophy and empirical social science. The normative framework defended is cosmopolitan, liberal egalitarian, and to some extent multicultural.

Liberalism

Chapter 8 argues that liberal values of freedom and equality not only form the basis for social justice (as argued in Chapter 4), but shared liberal values also provide a social basis for trust, solidarity, and egalitarian redistribution. More specifically, it is argued that shared liberal values have positive institutional, distributive, and direct value effects on social cohesion. Rawls made similar claims, but here a more thorough argument is provided. First, shared liberal values facilitate electoral support for universal, social democratic welfare states, which are conducive to institutional and generalized trust and redistributive solidarity. Second, shared liberal values facilitate electoral support for egalitarian redistribution, where socio-economic equality tends to promote trust and solidarity. And third, shared liberal values have direct value effects, where people who share such values tend to have a more inclusive conception of their in-group, and extend their trust and solidarity to, for example, immigrants.

Immigration and the Progressive’s Dilemma

Chapter 5 considers an influential argument for severely limiting immigration, based on the progressive’s dilemma. According to this argument, immigration leads to ethnic diversity, and ethnic diversity drives down trust and solidarity and so the social basis for egalitarian redistribution. The premise that ethnic diversity drives down trust and solidarity is critically discussed, primarily by reviewing a large empirical literature. It is argued that the evidence is less clear than it is often thought, and that even in studies that do find a negative effect of diversity, it tends to be small. Furthermore, there are a number of ways in which states can moderate any negative impacts diversity may have on social cohesion. Finally, a number of theoretical explanations for why diversity might be expected to drive down trust and solidarity are considered, and it is argued that they do not ultimately support the argument for restrictive immigration policies.

Multiculturalism

Where multiculturalists have argued that shared multicultural values and multicultural policies may form the basis for national unity and secure the allegiance of minorities to the polity and its members, critics have suggested that multiculturalism fractures society and promotes commitments to ethnic in-groups rather than trust and solidarity at the societal level. Based on a review of existing studies, this chapter concludes that multicultural policies do not seem to make much of a difference for these aspects of social cohesion, but that insofar as they do have an impact, it seems to be positive. More importantly, multicultural values seem to have positive direct value effects, not only on out-group trust and solidarity, but also on trust and solidarity in the in-group. Thus, as argued in Chapter 4, multicultural policies are in some cases supported by concerns for equality, and there is furthermore no evidence that such policies are detrimental to the social basis for egalitarian redistribution. In fact, the evidence suggests that states can strengthen social cohesion by engaging in community-building based on liberal and multicultural values.

U.S. Migration Policy Radicalization (2017-2019): Case of Mexico and Central America

This article is an attempt to critically analyze the policy of the 45th President of the United States Donald Trump regarding the southern border of the USA with Mexico. The paper analyzes the approach of Washington under the administration of D. Trump to the problem of the joint border between USA and Mexico, as well as conducts a comprehensive assessment of the main programs underlying the most pressing changes in D. Trumps policy in this area. In particular, the paper focuses on the structure of migration flows between 2017 and 2019, as well as on the reasons behind those changes. The author looks at the root causes of the unprecedented increase in the flow of potential migrants and refugees, and correlates them with the ongoing political, economic and humanitarian crises in the Central American sub-region. An important focus is given to the increasing role of Mexico in the settlement of this issue, as well as to the potential impact of such cooperation between the authorities of the United States and Mexico on the situation in Central America and Latin America in general. The significance of this paper is determined by the objective necessity of academic evaluation of the Donald Trumps administration impact on the United States governmental and foreign policy course. The author argues that the approach of the 45th president of the United States regarding traditionally sensitive issues like US - Mexico border control and migration has been mostly based on coercive tactics with obvious disregard towards social basis and root-causes of the issue at hand. One of the most distinguished traits of this approach is the practice of outsourcing managing the problem of refugees from Central America to the border-country, which in this specific case is Mexico.

Study on Citizen Participation in Local Governance in Vietnam

Reform to establish a democratic, citizen-centered government is an important orientation in the world and in Vietnam today. For Vietnam, how to promote and strengthen democratic governance must be one of the most crucial issues in order to achieve sustainable development goals. Based on the theoretical framework and survey results, this study evaluates citizen participation in local governance in Vietnam on seven main dimensions, including: (i) Transparency aims to ensure citizens’ right to know; (ii) Participation in elections; (iii) Outlining of policy initiatives; (iv) Policy discussion, social criticism and referendums; (v) Voluntary contributions and cooperation with the government in public-service delivery; (vi) Social self-governance; (vii) Supervision of the social realm. Research shows that the dominance of local government is very evident in the process of citizen participation. The policy implications for countries in transition like Vietnam are that, in order to increase citizen participation in local governance, the openness of local government should be enhanced. Of course, doing this well needs a certain social basis.