Last Generation – A Too Avantgarde Protest Movement?

The paper looks at the movement of the Last Generation active predominantly in Germany and subject to unprecedented legal and political backlash and violence. I first locate the movement within the landscape of contemporary climate movements and locate their protest tactics in the history of civil disobedience. The paper argues that the Last Generation’s protest tactics is legitimized by three distinct sources: 1) climate change being a case of global injustice, 2) the climate state of emergency and the need for a quick and radical emissions reductions, and 3) multidimensional deficits of democratic politics concerning the inclusion and the representation of the youngest (and future) generations and the epistemic failures to make climate science part of public deliberation. The paper concludes by considering the prospects and the conditions for the broader public mobilization for the rapid decarbonization and socio-ecological transformation and the role of (radical) climate movements in this mobilization.