Measuring the Europeanization of the Anti-GM Movement. Evidence from Five EU Countries

This study sets out to measure the degree of the anti-GM movement’s Europeanization by drawing on a quantitative protest event analysis that covers movement activity over a period of 15 years (1995 to 2009) in five EU member countries – Austria; France; Germany; Spain; and the UK –as well as in the supra- and transnational sphere (N = 1,865). Drawing on established concepts in the literature it compares four types of Europeanization– domestication; externalization; supra-nationalization; transnational pressure – and analyses the role of key activist groups Greenpeace and the Friends of the Earth network. The distribution of certain actor groups and the variations in their behavioural repertoires in each of these categories is explained as a consequence of variable transaction costs and contextual adaptation. In line with past findings of research into movements operating within the EU multilevel polity, the study confirms the thesis that nation states/publics still constitute the central locale and lever of movement activity.