Against All Odds? A Discourse Network Analysis of the Political Debate About the German Passenger Car Toll Act

In this article, we analyse the policy process of the German passenger Car Toll Act in Germany by means of a discourse network analysis. The Car Toll Act is particularly interesting as a 'least-likely case' for analysing a successful policy adoption as it was highly unpopular and faced massive criticism not only among the opposition but also among the government itself. To contribute to the understanding of the policy process behind such an unlikely policy, we analyse the reporting of two German quality newspapers, the Suddeutsche Zeitung and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, by means of qualitative content analysis. Based on a total number of 329 articles, we examine the discursive structures of political demands for and rejections of the passenger Car Toll Act in the media public sphere between July 2013 and October 2014. Our findings provide novel evidence on the importance of political discourse in the process leading to the adoption of unpopular policies, indicating that the combination of institutional leverage (coalition agreement and office) and discursive persistence can lead to policy change without clear majorities.