Understanding the policy controversy on the low emission zone in Ghent through discursive networks and strategies

Interpretive scholars understand policy controversies as discursive struggles, i.e. as discussions or battles between distinct discourses, in which polarisation and conflict arise from the different meanings actors attribute to policy issues. Accordingly, controversies are analysed through the identification of different discourses and their simplified expressions or storylines that emerge in the debate. However, this often ignores the role of agents and the relational character of discursive struggles.

In this presentation, we turn attention towards these neglected dimensions by analysing the controversy on the implementation of a low emission zone in the city of Ghent. Drawing on a discourse network analysis, we first propose a broad perspective on the debate: we identify the discourses, the discourse coalitions, their storylines, and we measure polarisation. Second, we focus on the discursive strategies, such as eco-shaming, that are used in the debate: we analyse how by discursively positioning others and seeking to harm their credibility and legitimacy, they influence the debate. We thus make an analytical move from descriptively presenting discourse networks towards assessing the explanatory value of discursive strategies for discursive stability and change in the policy controversy.