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Dissertation--Soziologie--Berlin--Technische Universität, 2006. / Bibliogr. p. 209-227.

In 2008, the so-called Climate Change Act went through the UK Parliament. The bill was a commitment to radically reduce carbon emissions. During the same period of time, a third runway was planned at the London Heathrow airport. The aim with this paper is to analyse the controversy that occurs over how the expansion of civil aviation can be connected or disconnected from the politics of climate change. The specific case of Heathrow expansion brings to the fore how certain domains and economic spheres are contested, as they become subjects for incorporation with climate change policy as a discursive practice. In focus of the study are debates in the UK Parliament, as well as contestations in the form of direct actions by the activist network “Plane Stupid”. A disparity in the debate exists between “carbon budget” and “technological enframing”: two competing programmes of government. The distinction between these programmes derives from a difference of relativising and absolutising rationalities. The parliament’s decision over Heathrow is an attempt to mitigate the conflict between conflicting policies. In the direct actions by Plane Stupid the issue is however demonstrated as a conflict, and absolute connections between the question of Heathrow and climate change are visualised. By making contestations of programmes and techniques of government, the practice of resistance relates to and utilise the productive powers of governmentality. The conflict of Heathrow touches upon dynamics of discursive modifications. The control and capacity to define the character of a problem are productive powers that are subjects for continuous negotiations, contestations and conflicts.

In 2008, the so-called Climate Change Act went through the UK Parliament. The bill was a commitment to radically reduce carbon emissions. During the same period of time, a third runway was planned at the London Heathrow airport. The aim with this paper is to analyse the controversy that occurs over how the expansion of civil aviation can be connected or disconnected from the politics of climate change. The specific case of Heathrow expansion brings to the fore how certain domains and economic spheres are contested, as they become subjects for incorporation with climate change policy as a discursive practice. In focus of the study are debates in the UK Parliament, as well as contestations in the form of direct actions by the activist network “Plane Stupid”. A disparity in the debate exists between “carbon budget” and “technological enframing”: two competing programmes of government. The distinction between these programmes derives from a difference of relativising and absolutising rationalities. The parliament’s decision over Heathrow is an attempt to mitigate the conflict between conflicting policies. In the direct actions by Plane Stupid the issue is however demonstrated as a conflict, and absolute connections between the question of Heathrow and climate change are visualised. By making contestations of programmes and techniques of government, the practice of resistance relates to and utilise the productive powers of governmentality. The conflict of Heathrow touches upon dynamics of discursive modifications. The control and capacity to define the character of a problem are productive powers that are subjects for continuous negotiations, contestations and conflicts.

Social media has created new protest spaces and has enabled people to do things differently. The focus of the research is on campaign groups, created before social media was used as a tool for protest. It has been undertaken to achieve the aim of the challenges and opportunities of incorporating new forms of social media into existing protest campaigns through a case study of anti-airport expansion groups in the UK. Social media data was obtained from three anti-airport expansion groups which included the extraction of approximately 9,000 tweets and 8,000 Facebook posts. The data were then analysed using social network analysis, time series analysis and semi-structured interviews. The results of social network analysis and time series analysis informed the development of the questions directed at the social media coordinators of each group. The main findings are that Airport Watch and HACAN Clearskies exhibit very similar Twitter networks and favour interaction with the media, similar anti-airport expansion groups and also pro-airport expansion groups. Transition Heathrow demonstrates more varied interaction patterns. All groups dominate their respective Facebook page and group networks apart from HACAN Clearskies which has non-assigned leaders controlling information dissemination in the group. Time series analysis uncovered variations in social media usage; overall for all three campaign groups Twitter was utilised more than Facebook.