Felix Butzlaff, postdoctoral fellow at DPP, has co-authored an article with Alexandra Bitušíková from UMB/Banska Bystrica, Slovakia in Political Research Exchange

Felix Butzlaff, postdoctoral fellow at DPP, has co-authored an article with Alexandra Bitušíková from UMB/Banska Bystrica, Slovakia in Political Research Exchange. In it, and based on the Horizon EU project BRRIDGE, they compare four European countries - Poland, Slovakia, Austria, and Germany - in how climate movements establish cooperation and linkages with the political system (or not). Results show that different political opportunities - party systems, political cultures, the presence of credible allies as well as the likelihood of influence - strongly affect party-movement linkages and activists’ satisfaction with representative democracy.
Whereas Polish climate movements joined a large coalition that mobilized for the opposition victory in 2023, in Germany we found much lower levels of cooperation. In contrast, in Slovakia and Austria climate movements remain at a distance from political parties and activists show great levels of frustration with representative democracy. In many instances, experiences with activism, such as the non-interest of politicians and the ways how representative democracy processes expertise through negotiations, deeply frustrate activists. In the climate crisis, this alters how some of the most active citizens approach democratic institutions and lose trust in the problem-solving capacities of democracy. Poland, in contrast, highlights how a collective memory of changing a society through activism and institutions creates a situation where young activists don't need to be enthusiastic about parties but still engage with the instruments representative democracy provides to change our societies.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/2474736X.2025.2581698?src=