Greening Democracy
The Anti-Nuclear Movement and Political Environmentalism in West Germany and Beyond, 1968–1983

This book reveals how concerns about nuclear reactors made ordinary people into environmentalists and promoted democratic engagement in West Germany during the 1970s.

Stephen Milder (Author)

9781107135109, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 24 April 2017

296 pages, 23 b/w illus.
23.5 x 15.8 x 1.8 cm, 0.61 kg

'… inspiring regional approach … an important book.' Jan Kellershohn, Moving the Social

Greening Democracy explains how nuclear energy became a seminal political issue and motivated new democratic engagement in West Germany during the 1970s. Using interviews, as well as the archives of environmental organizations and the Green party, the book traces the development of anti-nuclear protest from the grassroots to parliaments. It argues that worries about specific nuclear reactors became the basis for a widespread anti-nuclear movement only after government officials' unrelenting support for nuclear energy caused reactor opponents to become concerned about the state of their democracy. Surprisingly, many citizens thought transnationally, looking abroad for protest strategies, cooperating with activists in other countries, and conceiving of 'Europe' as a potential means of circumventing recalcitrant officials. At this nexus between local action and global thinking, anti-nuclear protest became the basis for citizens' increasing engagement in self-governance, expanding their conception of democracy well beyond electoral politics and helping to make quotidian personal concerns political.

Introduction: taking the democratic dimensions of antinuclear activism
1. 'Today the fish, tomorrow us:' the threatened Upper Rhine and the grassroots origins of West European environmentalism
2. A different watch on the Rhine: how antinuclear activists imagined the Alemannic community and united a region in resistance
3. Onto the site and into significance? The Wyhl Occupation in its contexts, from Strasbourg to Kaiseraugst and Constance to Kiel
4. 'Wyhl and then what …?' Between grassroots activism and mass protest
5. Political questions, grassroots answers: shaping an environmental approach to electoral politics
6. Organizing a 'decisive battle against nuclear power plants': Europe and the nationalization of Green politics in West Germany
Conclusion: protesting nuclear energy, Greening democracy.

Subject Areas: Social impact of environmental issues [RNT], Environmentalist, conservationist & Green organizations [RNB], 20th century history: c 1900 to c 2000 [HBLW], European history [HBJD]