“It’s just politics”: an exploration of people’s frames of the politics of mobility in Germany and their consequences

Abstract

Background: The decarbonization of the mobility sector is one of the main challenges in the context of climate mitigation. In Germany, as in many other countries, policy measures aiming to make the mobility system greener frequently fail to produce substantial results, not least due to a lack of support by large sections of the general public. Policy measures directed at reducing car traffic in particular are often met with indifference and resistance. The question thus arises: what basis do citizens use to form their (often negative) opinions about sustainable mobility policies? As a conceptual starting point for our empirical analysis, we draw on the frame concept and focus on people’s frames of the politics of mobility. With “politics of mobility” we refer to everything people could consider as political with regard to mobility. We understand frames as culturally mediated patterns of interpretation that ultimately motivate and guide actions. Results: Based on interviews and focus group data gathered in the region of the city of Stuttgart (Germany), we identify two dominant frames as well as combinations of these frames by which people make sense of the activities of political actors in the field of mobility. In one frame, which we labeled “politics-as-actor”, mobility politics are interpreted with reference to politics as some kind of monolithic abstract actor. In the other, which we labeled as “politics-as-staged-process”, mobility politics are portrayed as an interest-driven, opaque process that only purport to being democratic. Conclusions: In terms of policy recommendations, we use our findings to derive suggestions for how to increase support for green mobility policies: transparent implementation of policy measures, pragmatic policy styles and the involvement of intermediaries.