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The Strength and Limits of Neoliberal Dominance: an Analysis of the Public Debate on Economic Liberalization in Western Europe

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The Strength and Limits of Neoliberal Dominance: an Analysis of the Public Debate on Economic Liberalization in Western Europe Zurich Open Repository and Archive University of Zurich Main Library Strickhofstrasse 39 CH-8057 Zurich www.zora.uzh.ch Year: 2012 The strength and limits of neoliberal dominance: an analysis of the public debate on economic liberalization in Western Europe Wueest, Bruno Abstract: This thesis puts forward a study of the public discourse on economic liberalization in Aus- tria, France, Germany, the Netherlands, the UK, and Switzerland. Following a discursive institutionalist perspective, the study integrates political-economic and media system varieties among countries, the distinguishing characteristics of the policy process and actor-specific discursive actions into a single re- search design. In a departure from the typical approach of discursive neoinstitutionalists, which usually examines a single idea and traces its influence on a narrow set of actors in one or two countries, this study explores a rich bundle of policies related to economic liberalization and maps the plurality of ideas brought forward by all actors relevant for public discourse in six countries. By systematically analyzing thousands of publicly communicated ideas, the book further takes the demand for more sta- tistical and quantitative methods in ideational research seriously. The findings can thus solidify and extend the evidence provided by discursive institutionalists. First, public discourse is amplifying insti- tutional divergence in economic policy-making, but it does not only interact with the political-economic context but also with media system characteristics. Second, discursive coalitions advocating the pro- market orthodoxy are the strongest contenders in public discourse, but the prevalence of these coalitions varies considerably across countries and political arenas. Most notably in France and in the protest, electoral and parliamentary arenas of politics, public discourse is heavily polarized. Here, oppositional coalitions of traditional leftists and protectionists have a strong influence on public discourse as well. Die vorliegende Dissertation basiert auf einer vergleichenden Untersuchung des öffentlichen Diskurses zu ökonomschen Liberalisierungsmassnahmen in Österreich, Frankreich, Deutschland, die Niederlande, UK und der Schweiz. In Ahnlenung an die theoretischen Perspektiven des diskursiven Institutionalismus wird versucht, politisch-ökonomische, mediensystembedingte und aktuersstrategische Unterschiede dieser Diskurse aufzuzeigen. Im Unterschied zum typischen Vorgehen von diskursiv-institutionalistischen An- sätzen, die sich meistens auf eine spezifische Politikmassname in einem oder zwei Ländern und ein sehr enges Feld von politischen Akteuren fokussieren, untersucht diese Studie eine Vielzahl von Politikmass- nahmen und alle Akteure (Parteien, Interessengruppen, Unternehmen etc.), welche in Qualitätszeitungen Erwähnung finden. Als Datengrundlage dienen deshalb tausende von systematisch erhobenen politis- chen Äusserungen, welche in verschiedensten statistischen Modellen ausgewertet werden. Die Ergebnisse der Studie helfen deshalb, die bisherigen Erkenntnisse von diskursiv-institutionalistischen Arbeiten zu generalisieren. Ein erstes Hauptergebnis der Studie ist, das der öffentlische Diskurs die institutionellen Unterscheide zwischen den Ländern noch verstärkt, d.h. ohnehin schon konfliktive Länder weisen auch einen polarisierteren politischen Diskurs auf. Zweites Hauptergebnis ist die Identifikation von diskursiven Koalitionen und deren Kräfteverhaltnisse in den einzelnen Ländern. Generell sind die Liberalisierungs- befürworter in der Mehrheit, in einzelnen Ländern wie Frankreich und zu einzelnen Zeitpunkten wie bei Wahlen und Abstimmungen, kommt diese bestimmende Koalition aber stark unter Druck. Das heisst auch liberalisierungs-kritische Koalitionen mit entweder protektionistischen oder sozial-markwirtschaftlichen Motiven können teilweise gewichtigen Einfluss auf den öffentlichen Diskurs nehmen. 2 Posted at the Zurich Open Repository and Archive, University of Zurich ZORA URL: https://doi.org/10.5167/uzh-140449 Dissertation Published Version Originally published at: Wueest, Bruno. The strength and limits of neoliberal dominance: an analysis of the public debate on economic liberalization in Western Europe. 2012, University of Zurich, Faculty of Arts. 2 The Strength and Limits of Neoliberal Dominance An Analysis of the Public Debate on Economic Liberalization in Western Europe Bruno Wueest This work was accepted as a PhD thesis by the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences, University of Zurich in the spring term 2012 on the recommendation of the Doctoral Committee: Prof. Dr. Hanspeter Kriesi (main supervisor) Prof. Dr. Fabrizio Gilardi (co-supervisor) Contents List of illustrations page v List of tables vi 1 The Public Debate on Economic Liberalization in Western Europe: Introduction 1 1.1 Designing the Inquiry 4 1.2 Outline of the Argument 10 1.3 Structure of the book 17 Part One: A Framework to Analyze the Economic Lib- eralization Debate 19 2 Long-Term Transformations and the Economic Lib- eralization Debate 20 2.1 Economic Globalization and Post-industrialization 21 2.2 The Changing Nature of the State 24 2.3 The Emergence of a Pro-Liberalization Mainstream 28 2.4 Challenges of Neoliberal Dominance 32 2.5 New Conflict Dimensions 37 2.6 Conclusion 40 3 How Institutional Contexts Relate to Public De- bates 43 3.1 Countries: Diverging Institutional Constellations 44 3.2 Arenas: Structuring Sites of the Policy Process 53 3.3 Conclusion 56 4 Debate Coalition Formation: The Actors’ Strategic Repertoire in Public Debates 59 4.1 Going Public 63 Contents iii 4.2 Policy Position Taking 67 4.3 Valence Campaigning 73 4.4 Framing 75 4.5 Conclusion 80 5 Designing the Content Analysis 82 5.1 Selection of Countries and Time Periods 83 5.2 Sampling of Newspapers 84 5.3 Core Sentence Annotation 85 5.4 Conclusion 91 Part Two: How the Debate on Economic Liberalization Relates to the Institutional Contexts and the Ac- tors’ Discursive Strategies 92 6 Mapping the Terrain: The Structure and Actor Dis- tribution of the Debate on Economic Liberalization 93 6.1 The Structure of the Debate 94 6.2 Who Inhabits the Economic Liberalization Debate? 99 6.3 Conclusion 108 7 Policy Conflicts in the Economic Liberalization De- bate 110 7.1 The Countries’ Overall Debate Climate 111 7.2 Positions and Polarization by Arenas 115 7.3 Explaining the Actors’ Policy Position Taking 117 7.4 The Coalitional Settings in the Six Countries 124 7.5 Conclusion 133 8 Valence Campaigning: The Logic of Actor Refer- ences 135 8.1 Valence Campaigning by Countries and Arenas 136 8.2 How Actors Engage in Valence Campaigning 137 8.3 Valence Campaigning Networks 139 8.4 Coalition-Specific Valence Campaigning 143 8.5 Conclusion 144 iv Contents 9 Framing Economic Liberalization 146 9.1 Framing by Country 147 9.2 How Frames Differ across Arenas 151 9.3 How the Debate is Perceived by Actors 153 9.4 Core Beliefs of the Debate Coalitions 161 9.5 Conclusion 162 10 Conclusion: The Strength and Limits of Neoliberal Dominance 164 Appendix A Classifications 170 A.1 Actor Classifications 170 A.2 Classification of Frames and Issues 177 Appendix B Additional Classifications and Formal Defi- nitions 180 Appendix C Additional Analyses 182 References 191 Illustrations 1.1 Heuristic Model of the Debate Analysis 11 2.1 Economic Long-Term Developments in Western Europe 23 2.2 The Role of the State in the Economy 27 2.3 Protest Against Economic Liberalization 35 4.1 The Formation of Debate Coalitions 60 4.2 Debate Coalitions in the Policy Space of Economic liberal- ization 68 5.1 Variables and Indicators 88 6.1 Overall Going Public and with Respect to the Two Dimen- sions 106 7.1 Average Policy Positions by Country 112 7.2 Average Policy Positions in Arenas 116 7.3 Policy Positions of Actors on Economic Liberalization 119 7.4 How Debate Coalitions Form from the Actors’ Going Public and Policy Position Taking by Country 126 7.5 Policy Positions and Salience of Debate Coalitions by Coun- try and Dimension 131 8.1 Overall and Self-Referred Valence Campaigning 138 8.2 The Importance of Actors in Valence Campaigning Net- works 141 8.3 Coalition-Specific Valence Campaigning 144 9.1 Framing of Economic Liberalization by Country 148 9.2 Framing by Arenas as well as Support and Opposition 151 9.3 Framing by Actors 158 C.1 Histograms for Dependent Variables in Actor Regressions on Going Public 183 C.2 Histograms for Dependent Variables in Actor Regressions on Framing 190 Tables 2.1 Policy Positions, Issue Salience, and Going Public on Eco- nomic Liberalization in the Electoral Arena 30 2.2 Issues of the Debate on Economic Liberalization 39 2.3 Expectations on the Overall Transformation of Conflict 42 3.1 Globalization, Tertiarization and Economic Misery 45 3.2 The Arena Structure of the Debate 54 3.3 Expectations on the Impact of the Institutional Context 57 4.1 Actor Classification 62 4.2 Frame Conceptualization 77 4.3 Expectations on the Influence of Discursive strategies 81 5.1 CSA coding example 86 5.2 Number of Observations 87 6.1 Salience of Actor Origins 95 6.2 Issue Salience by Countries 96 6.3 Structure of the Debate Space: Factor Analysis 98 6.4 Going Public in the Debate on Economic Liberalization 101 7.1 Polarization by Country and Dimensions 114 7.2 Polarization by Arena 117 7.3 Determinants of Policy Positions on Domestic and Interna- tional Liberalization 121 8.1 Valence Campaigning by Countries and Arenas 136 9.1 Framing Economic Liberalization by Countries 150 9.2 Framing Economic Liberalization by Arenas
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