Czech Environmental Direct Action in an International Context

Abstract

Direct action constitutes an important repertoire of action for
environmental movements. Direct action is a way to bring attention to
problems but it is also a goal and a value in itself. The paper deals with two
different concepts of direct action: the liberal concept, which views direct
action in instrumental terms, and the anarchist concept, which rather
understands direct action in terms of values and as a preferred way of
acting. The article particularly pays attention to environmental direct action,
which further develops the anarchist concept of direct action as a preferred
way of doing things. On the basis of an empirical research that was carried
out, it answers the questions of how Czech environmental organisations
have employed these different concepts of direct action, why their use of
the liberal concept is very limited and why direct action as a preferred way
of doing things has not yet become a part of the repertoire of collective
action. The article finds an explanation for this in the very specific historical
experience of the Czech environmental movement, which has tended to
dialogue with power rather than confrontations with it, the political
ostracism of the movement in the 1990s, and the different developments of
the environmental and anarchist milieus, which did not allow for an
overlapping of these milieus that would serve as the basis for the
development of the practice of environmental direct action.