To Örebro University

The mid-2000s saw an upsurge in radical left-libertarian activism in Denmark. The struggle for the Youth house in 2006, Church-asylum in 2008 and the UN Climate-summit of 2009 drew thousand of protesters to the streets, cementing the historical picture of Denmark as a focal point for modern radical left-libertarian activism (Hare, 2009). However, only a year later the outburst of movement activity and urban unrest was replaced by dead calm. In the early 2010s, many activists made a withdrawal from the streets, transforming from a vigorous movement into a “fragmented and disoriented” milieu (Karpantchof & Mikkelsen, 2014).

In this paper I describe the development of the radical left-libertarian movement in Denmark throughout the 2000s, and analyze it´s growth, decline and transformation through both movement-internal and external factors. The Danish case provides an opportunity to analyze the ebb and flow of a radical movement, as well as to investigate the causes and effects of these shift. Particular focus is placed on how changes in opportunity structures, either factual or perceived, have affected the activists’ collective action frames, mobilization patterns and repertories of action. The analysis is based on data from protest events, semi-structured interviews with activists as well as movement documents such as magazines, leaflets, web pages, films and books.