PARTIES AND MOVEMENTS
member groups in seventy countries (Friends of the Earth International
2006 ) and Greenpeace has a presence in forty countries (Greenpeace Inter-
national 2006 ). Membership and income have also mushroomed.^6 Green-
peace International had 2.7 million ‘supporters’ (i.e. regular donors) and a
net income of€158.5 million in 2004 (Greenpeace 2005 ). FoE International
claims to have around 1.5 million ‘members and supporters’ (Friends of the
Earth International 2006 ). FoE (England and Wales), for example, grew from
eight local groups, 1,000 supporters, 6 staff and an annual budget of£10, 000
in 1971 (Lowe and Goyder 1983 :133), to around 220 local groups, 100,000
supporters, 92 staff and an annual income of£5.5 million in 2004 (FoE 2004).
Organisational growth of this order clearly satisfies the first category of insti-
tutionalisation (see Box6.1), but can it be compatible with social movement
aims and strategies?
The organisational structures of FoE and Greenpeace initially differed
markedly. FoE, in its early days, resembled a social movement organisation –
in each country it started life as a small campaigning group, usually with
acentral office to co-ordinate strategies, and autonomous local groups with
independent control over budgets and campaigns. Today, the organisational
structure of FoE varies between countries, ranging from the decentralised
Australian group to the centralised US group with its focus on the Washing-
tonlobby (Doherty 2002 :130). However, where FoE attracted a mass mem-
bership it became increasingly centralised and professional. For example, as
FoE(UK) expanded, the distance between the centre and local groups grew
ever wider (Lowe and Goyder 1983 ). The centre initially resisted demands
from local groups for a greater say in the organisation but, under growing
pressure from members and campaign staff, it introduced a more demo-
cratic structure in 1983. Elected members do hold a majority on the board
and local groups can influence strategy through the annual conference, but
with the continued growth and further professionalisation of the organisa-
tion, it is a matter of some debate how democratic FoE is in practice (Jordan
and Maloney 1997 ;Rawcliffe 1998 ). On balance, whilst the national level
does effectively set the strategy (Doherty 2002 :129), it is also very keen to
keep the grassroots membership content, hence its decision not to expand
thenational office and to locate any future increases in staff at the regional
and local levels. Thus FoE (UK) has experienced a steady shift from an infor-
mal social movement towards a professional, centralised organisation, but
elements of both ‘types’ remain in tension with each other, demonstrating
that this transformation is not complete.
By contrast, Greenpeace has never claimed to be democratic. Its founders
had a clear organisational blueprint of an elitist, hierarchical structure
where control resided with full-time staff and professional activists. The
intention was to free those activists from inefficient, time-consuming demo-
cratic controls to allow them to concentrate on direct action. Most Green-
peace ‘members’ are, in fact, ‘supporters’ whose subscription fee gives them
no formal organisational rights, and the involvement of local groups and