Clamshell Alliance

The Clamshell Alliance is an anti-nuclear alliance in New England which spearheaded a movement against Seabrook nuclear power plant during the 1970s. Its egalitarian organization forms and nonviolent direct action style became a classic model among anti-authoritarian and anti-nuclear movements throughout the United States and Europe. On April 30, 1976, in their third and biggest action, about 2,500 persons organized in autonomous action groups, “affinity groups”of 3 to 15 persons, occupied the site of the planned Seabrook plant. More than 1,400 activists were kept in National Guard Armories for almost 2 weeks, during which activists conducted workshops and nonviolent action trainings (with role-plays and action simulations). The action was a great success in that it fueled a movement against nuclear power.

The term affinity groups originates from the Spanish grupos de afinidad, intimate political discussion and action groups that shaped anarchism during the Spanish Civil War as well as women's consciousness-raising groups. Clamshell Alliance integrated and developed consensus decision making in mass direct actions with the help of affinity groups and used nonviolence guidelines and trainings to facilitate action discipline and creativity. Rotating facilitators managed discussions and “vibes-watchers”took care of emotions and group energy. Spokespersons passed on decisions made by groups to the coordinating committee meetings, which in their decisions had to find agreement with the groups. The alliance attempted mutual accommodation of the individual and the collective. Consensus expressed the alliance's freedom fight against an undemocratic society as well as a belief in collective truth.

The alliance is part of a long-standing left libertarian tradition in the United States. It viewed nuclear power as an instrument of dominance and violence which citizens and local communities were entitled to resist with their civil disobedience. The internal organization of the Clamshell Alliance was an alternative to a hierarchical society symbolized by nuclear power. The alliance fought a liberty struggle internally through egalitarian organization and externally through nonviolent resistance.

Although the alliance popularized a decentralized model of direct action, they were not the first to use it. The alliance were inspired and grew from the anti–Vietnam War movement, in addition to other anti-nuclear groups such as the more than 25,000 persons who occupied the site and stopped the plant construction in West German Wyhl in 1975.

Local authorities dealt rather efficiently with the Clamshell Alliance and, after 1977, frustration grew. Organizational changes and physical nonviolence in resistance to removal during occupations did not help. The final factional split of the alliance is often attributed to ideological conflicts of the egalitarian organization form, especially the consensus decision-making form. What made them famous was perhaps also their weakness. The alliance showed the possibility of decentralized mass action and creative skill-sharing through nonviolence training. At the same time, it involuntarily showed the problems and limits of radical egalitarian ideology in movements. Nevertheless, the Seabrook plant was never fully completed, and the model is still inspiring movements.