From destabilisation to disruption: deactivation network dynamics in an Italian fossil infrastructure conflict

This article introduces the deactivation network approach (DNA) to analyse conflicts in fossil fuel infrastructures as relational struggles between practices of continuity/legitimation and practices of destabilisation/disruption. The DNA is applied to Enel's power plants in Civitavecchia (Italy) across two contentious conversion cycles: an oil-to-coal project (2000–2010, realised) and a proposed coal-to-gas project (2018–2023, halted). Using an intentionally asymmetrical design, the study maps only the deactivation network and treats the fossil-support network as a structuring context shaping political opportunity structures. Event-based social network analysis, triangulated with interviews, documentary sources, and digital ethnography, compares changes in network composition, connectivity, and tie intensity across the two periods. Results show that mobilisation and activist cohesion alone did not produce disruption. Deactivation became effective when activists' destabilisation was brokered into institutional and labour arenas, enabling administrative and political interference with infrastructural continuity.