Mobilizing Doubt: The Legal Mobilization of Climate Denialist Groups

The climate change countermovement (CCCM) deploys a broad repertoire of tactics in its effort to cast doubt on the science of climate change. One important yet understudied tactic is the effort by CCCM groups to use open records laws in scientifically uncertain areas to cast doubt on the accuracy of scientific information. This article explores the use of this tactic by CCCM groups and adds to the legal mobilization literature in three ways. First, it traces the origin of CCCM groups to the broader conservative legal movement of the 1970s that challenged the dominance of the liberal legal network. Second, it shows how CCCM groups waged an open records campaign against climate scientists in Virginia and Arizona, causing scientists to countermobilize by organizing their own legal campaigns. Finally, this article provides the first empirical evidence of the effect of CCCM Freedom of Information Act suits on the activities of university researchers. I find, through in‐depth personal interviews with twelve university researchers, that the experience of researchers who have been exposed to open records campaigns has been overwhelmingly negative, has caused them to change their methods of communication, and has imposed a new work burden that draws them away from other work responsibilities. I argue that the costs of these tactics are narrowly borne by a concentrated group of scientists whose production of knowledge is a public good that allows us to address the crosscutting and relentless problem of climate change.     

A Walkinthe Clouds

<正>Summertime has finally come to the capital city,and everyone stands jaw agape at the wonderful,kaleidoscopic colored skies.Masks are out;parasol parades are in.Is that overhead blanket something new?Did the government by accident discover ways to make fissures in the vast gray concrete sheet that normaly hovers above our heads?Answering     

Die Dialektik multikultureller Identität: Kanada als Lehrstück

Dieser Aufsatz untersucht die Konstruktion multikultureller nationaler Identität am Beispiel Kanadas. Mittels einer Untersuchung ausgewählter Artikel zweier großer kanadischer Zeitungen, der Globe and Mail und der Toronto Star in den 1990er Jahren wird gezeigt, dass sowohl Kanada-USA Gegenüberstellungen als auch Vergleiche des englischsprachigen Kanadas mit dem französischsprachigen Quebec eine wichtige Rolle für die Konstruktion des Mythos “multikulturelles Kanada” spielen. Die mittels der Fallstudie gewonnenen Einsichten werden anschließend dazu genutzt, zwei in der Fachliteratur gängige Darstellungen des Kanada-Quebec Verhältnisses zu nuancieren und die Konstruktion eines multikulturellen nationalen Selbstverständnisses theoretisch zu erfassen.