Environmental groupsthe doors began to reopen from the late 1980s onwards, they slammed shut
again with the election of George W. Bush in 2000 (Bosso 2005 :ch.5). Even
where green parties have entered government, as in Germany, environmen-
tal groups have found their access to ministers only marginally improved
(Dryzek et al. 2003 :185–6; R ̈udig 2003 : 266).
The acid test of the environmental movement – itssubstantiveimpact –
is particularly difficult to evaluate. Grassroots groups have certainly scored
many individual local successes (although the prevention of a LULU in one
location often results in it being built elsewhere). They have also endured
many defeats: for example, most of the British roads that were the subject
of an extensive anti-roads direct action campaign during the 1990s were
eventually built. Grassroots campaigns have rarely proved decisive in the
wider policy arena. The strongest claim for the British anti-roads protests is
that these campaigns succeeded in pushing the road-building issue high up
the political agenda and created the climate in which the Conservative gov-
ernment made dramatic cuts in the road-building programme, but it was
not the decisive factor (Robinson 2000 ). In the USA, whilst some commenta-
tors are circumspect about the influence of grassroots groups (Gould et al.
1996 ), others argue that grassroots campaigns have helped change legisla-
tion on pollution control and right-to-know provisions, and encouraged busi-
ness and government to take a more preventive approach to environmental
contamination (Freudenberg and Steinsapir 1992 : 33–5). The environmen-
tal justice movement seems to have persuaded the Clinton administration
toissue Executive Order 12898 in 1994, which required agencies to take
social and environmental justice concerns seriously (Roberts and Toffolon-
Weiss 2001 : 56). In Germany, confrontational strategies involving a combi-
nation of grassroots groups and more mainstream organisations, such as
Greenpeace, have scored some notable victories, especially the anti-nuclear
campaigns opposing the construction of nuclear reactors and transport of
nuclear waste. Indeed, in an interesting comparative study of the environ-
mental movements in Germany, Norway, t he UKandtheUSA,Dryzeketal.
(2003)identify Germany as the only country with ‘significant pro-active pol-
icy in response to environmental activity in civil society’ (p. 162).
The impact of the insider strategy pursued by the mainstream environ-
mental movement has also been primarily defensive; a powerful, united
green lobbycan frequently repulse undesirable policy initiatives and block
environmentally damaging development projects. It has had less success in
building support for its own reforms or in bringing about major changes
tothepolicy discourse, although its influence has varied between countries
and over time. Obviously the policy impact of the environmental lobby in any
individual country will depend on a wide range of contextual factors, includ-
ing the openness of the political opportunity structure, public attitudes, the
party politicisation of the environment, the strength of the producer lobby
and the strategic choices made by the environmental groups themselves.