Does climate change delegitimize political parties? How movement–party linkages in Germany, Austria, Slovakia, and Poland are reshaped

Contemporary climate movements such as Fridays for Future have declared to stay away from party politics out of fear of being dragged into a party-political debate. In their perspective, they advocate scientific truths which shall be implemented without political negotiations watering them down. Yet, they direct their demands towards the representative system. In this article, based on a series of qualitative interviews with activists and politicians in Germany, Austria, Poland, and Slovakia, we compare how movements and parties cooperate in the field of climate politics. Using a political opportunity structure perspective, we scrutinize the factors that shape linkages between civil society, movements, and more traditional political forms of political representation in the climate crisis. Results show that different party systems, political cultures, the presence of credible allies as well as the likelihood of influence affect party-movement linkages and activists’ satisfaction with representative democracy. Whereas Polish climate movements joined a large coalition that mobilized for the opposition victory in 2023, in Germany we found much lower levels of cooperation. In contrast, in Slovakia and Austria climate movements remain at a distance from political parties and activists show great levels of frustration with representative democracy.