What the climate movement’s debate about disruption gets wrong

It is an unfortunate reality that despite the institutional trappings of democracy, the general public is usually marginal to the policymaking process. In practice, that process is typically dominated by powerful industries and state institutions that exercise preponderant influence over both government and media. This asymmetry is especially well documented in the case of the United States but is also true, to varying extents, of all capitalist societies (Gilens and Page, 2014; Young et al., 2020). Thus many potential reforms enjoy strong majority support among the public yet never get…