IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/taf/rmobxx/v15y2020i6p810-827.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Cracks in the gearbox of car hegemony: struggles over the German Verkehrswende between stability and change

Author

Listed:
  • Tobias Haas

Abstract

The automobile permeated Western societies in the twentieth century and enjoys hegemonic protection. Nevertheless, profound changes in mobility are looming, posing new challenges for mobility research. This article develops a four-dimensional understanding of hegemony, which encompasses the integral state, material and ideological dimensions and people’s everyday practices, in order to analyse the changes in mobility. The Gramscian approach is characterized by a profound conception of power relations and serves as an instrument for analysing social struggles and related actor constellations. This understanding not only enables a precise determination of the hegemonic safeguarding of the automobile, but also of the emerging fractures in the automotive consensus and the perspectives of counter-hegemonic strategies. Based on this Gramscian perspective, the article analyses the safeguarding and brittleness of car hegemony in Germany. It is concluded that although windows of opportunity have opened for a less car-centric mobility regime, these currently lack a fundamental politicisation of the car and involvement of labour required to innovate beyond narrow ecological modernisation, which would see only moderate modal shift and technological uptake of post-fossil drivetrains while otherwise leaving the hegemony of the car unchallenged.

Suggested Citation

  • Tobias Haas, 2020. "Cracks in the gearbox of car hegemony: struggles over the German Verkehrswende between stability and change," Mobilities, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(6), pages 810-827, November.
    • Handle: RePEc:taf:rmobxx:v:15:y:2020:i:6:p:810-827
    DOI: 10.1080/17450101.2020.1817686
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1080/17450101.2020.1817686
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/17450101.2020.1817686?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Daniel Velden & Joost Dessein & Laurens Klerkx & Lies Debruyne, 2023. "Constructing legitimacy for technologies developed in response to environmental regulation: the case of ammonia emission-reducing technology for the Flemish intensive livestock industry," Agriculture and Human Values, Springer;The Agriculture, Food, & Human Values Society (AFHVS), vol. 40(2), pages 649-665, June.
    2. Ruhrort, Lisa & Zehl, Franziska & Knie, Andreas, 2021. "Untersuchung von Einstellungen gegenüber einer Neuaufteilung öffentlicher Räume zulasten des Autoverkehrs: Ergebnisse einer repräsentativen Befragung im Berliner Bezirk Friedrichshain-Kreuzberg sowie ," Discussion Papers, Research Group Digital Mobility and Social Differentiation SP III 2021-602, WZB Berlin Social Science Center.
    3. Mayer, Marius & Bichler, Bernhard Fabian & Pikkemaat, Birgit & Peters, Mike, 2021. "Media discourses about a superspreader destination: How mismanagement of Covid-19 triggers debates about sustainability and geopolitics," Annals of Tourism Research, Elsevier, vol. 91(C).
    4. Ruhrort, Lisa, 2022. "Can a rapid mobility transition appear both desirable and achievable? Reflections on the role of competing narratives for socio-technical change and suggestions for a research agenda," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest Ar, pages 1-1.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:taf:rmobxx:v:15:y:2020:i:6:p:810-827. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Chris Longhurst (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.tandfonline.com/rmob20 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.