ABSTRACT
Which factors were most important in determining the outcomes of major environmental justice cases in Louisiana during the 1990s? In four cases studied here, local citizens mobilised and engaged in protracted struggles. In the successful cases, protestors took advantage of a combination of circumstances and strategies that served to raise their group’s power to levels that could challenge the opposing growth coalition, pursuing a political strategy targeting federal agencies that were in the process of creating policy, ‘marketing’ the struggle to attract outside resources and support, using the media and outside allies to put pressure on federal agencies, and seeking non-displacing goals. Fighting the siting of new facilities is far more likely to succeed than fighting existing contamination and entrenched firms.
