An Alternative to Capitalist Growth Ideology? The Growth-critical Policy Discourse and its Struggle against Hegemony

Abstract

Humans are currently faced with a multitude of issues. A wide range of them can be traced back to what I will call the Capitalist Growth Ideology and its currently hegemonic economic paradigm. This paradigm considers economic growth as an imperative and is inherently shaped by capitalist dynamics. It has taken its hold across national parliaments which was visible in Germany during 2013-2017. Already during its birth, first criticism of the growth paradigm was voiced. However, critical voices have not had a transformative impact on its hegemony so far. Since the Global Financial Crisis, new and old strands of growth critique were furthered, and a growth-critical movement with the aim of replacing the Capitalist Growth Ideology is becoming bigger. I am exploring whether and to what degree growth-critical ideas are challenging growth ideas. Specifically, I look at policies and the German federal parliament, the Bundestag. My analysis is informed by theory on policy discourses, which means that I am having a constructivist approach. The research question that guides my analysis is What alternative approaches to the Capitalist Growth Ideology exist and how is their discursive struggle against hegemony characterised? I am first creating an inventory of policies and narratives of the growth critical policy discourse for which I am analysing sources of different strands of ideas, building on an existing policy inventory of the degrowth movement by Fitzpatrick et al. (2022). With grounded theory, I am coding policy frames into different policy themes. Second, I am analysing the presence of the growth critical policy discourse and its possible struggle with the hegemonic growth discourse in the Bundestag. By tracing frames of meaning, informed by the first step of the analysis, I analyse the policy discourse in parliamentary speeches across several months. The inventory of policies and storylines for the growth critical policy discourse is comprehensive, addressing all issues caused by the Capitalist Growth Ideology. As such, the growth critical movement has the potential of becoming a real alternative approach, despite internal dissonances. However, the growth critical policy discourse has still not taken hold in the Bundestag as of summer 2022. While traces of growth critical policies and narratives are present, the green growth narrative prevails. Findings on the dynamic between the opposing discourses inspire a discussion of possible future avenues for the quest of ‘dethroning’ the Capitalist Growth Ideology.