Framing contests and institutional change: the case of the automotive field and the environmental movement in Germany

Abstract

Based on an in-depth case study, this paper examines how framing contests between proponents and opponents of the Diesel particulate filter (DPF) in Germany evolve over time to affect institution creation. Our results suggest that the emergence of institution passes through three cumulative phases: necessary opening, organizing-mobilizing, instrumentalization of channels. This development is characterized by specific framing contests where the precedent phase is a necessary condition for the next to occur, a process which we conceptualize as cumulation. Our data indicate that framing contests were resolved when collective action frames which have a motivational task were crafted by the social movement with the effect of mobilizing customers, thereby creating a de facto standard i.e. the Diesel particulate filter. We argue that the motivational frame resonated because it features negative individualized evidence-based consequences and because it built on the framing contests of previous phases. Finally, we observed that framing contests tend to polarize over time, thereby reflecting the intensity of the conflict.