Since late 2018, a global wave of mobilization under the banners of Fridays For Future (FFF) and Extinction Rebellion (XR) has injected new energy into global climate politics. FFF and XR took the world by storm, but have now been forced into (partial) latency as a result of the Covid-19 pandemic. We believe this moment presents an opportunity for reflection. In particular, FFF and XR have been depicted as 'new' forms of climate activism. However, we argue that the extent to which these campaigns represent 'new' forms of climate activism is really a matter for closer investigation. In this Profile, we therefore reflect on the distinctiveness of the 'new climate activism' as compared to previous climate campaigns. Reviewing previous studies and our own research, we find that there are both elements of change and continuity in who participates and how, and that the main change appears to be the use of a more politically 'neutral' framing of climate change that is directed more strongly at state than non-state actors.

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This article investigates the empirical evidence for the statement that the impact of social movement organizations (SMOs) and interest groups on policy making is dependent on public opinion and the political system. A meta-analysis of articles published in eleven sociology and political science journals from 1990 to 2007 is used to test two hypotheses: 1) when public opinion is taken into account, SMOs and interest groups have no direct effect on policy; 2) the existence of a democratic regime is a necessary precondition for finding any policy impact of SMOs and interest groups. Results show that taking account of public opinion does not generally make any difference in the finding of direct effects. However, the role of public opinion varies across the measures of organizational resources and activity. I also find that a democratic regime is not a necessary precondition for the impact of SMOs and interest groups on public policy, but show that a direct effect of interest organizations is less likely to be found in the studies that take account of political regime.

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