Networking in environmental movement organisation coalitions: interest, values or discourse?

Networks of information and resource exchanges between social movement organisations (SMOs) have a dual function. Such networks can support instrumental alliances among very distinct and weakly connected SMOs, but they often support the formation of more tightly-knit social movement and SMO discourse coalitions. What distinguishes an instrumental from a more substantive alliance is the density of networking. The coalescing force in dense networks is not necessarily a collective identity, but the similarity in values (value homophily) or a shared discourse. Evidence from Indonesian environmental activism is used to draw three propositions on networking, value homophily and discursive practices in coalition work: networks tend to be most dense among environmental SMOs that share the same variety of environmentalism; density of interaction in SMO discourse coalitions reveals ongoing framing activities; and environmental SMO discourse coalitions bridge across SMOs with distinct yet compatible environmental values.