“Beyond Politics”? A Post-political Discourse Analysis of Extinction Rebellion

Abstract

Extinction Rebellion (XR) is a social movement committed to non-violent civil disobedience to persuade governments to act on climate change. As part of this aim, it approaches climate change as a non-partisan and unifying issue. At the same time, environmental political theorists have identified climate change as a distinct site of post-politics. They problematise the widespread understanding of climate change as a catastrophic force of ‘nature’ that must be managed to protect humanity. This discursive representation de-emphasises the systemic drivers of climate change to justify addressing the issue within the existing parameters of the prevailing political order that perpetuates it. In this context, this thesis aims to analyse XR from a post-political perspective. It argues that the group’s apolitical framing of climate change reflects dominant climate discourse, which undermines the movement’s political effectiveness. Drawing on Laclau and Mouffe’s discourse theory, the thesis conducted a discourse analysis of XR’s framing of climate change, focusing on its implications for the group’s argument for political change. The analysis revealed two primary ways that XR reproduces dominant post-political climate discourse, as well as an emphasis on a moral, rather than explicitly political, justification for political action. Together, these findings illuminate how XR’s representation of climate change is post-political, limiting the group’s capacity to build a diverse social movement that embraces the conflict inherent to political demands for a better social and environmental future.