Plenardebatten als Spiegel sich wandelnder Diskurskoalitionen: Die Positionierung der Bun- destagsfraktionen zum Verhältnis von Ökologie und Ökonomie seit 1977

Contrary to what is often assumed, members of the German Bundestag do not only use the plenary debates for issuing pre-fabricated statements or advertising party positions to an imaginary public but they also refer to each other and enter into a direct discourse on con­tent . In an innovative long-term study, this article examines all speech shares on ecological topics in the chancellor’s budget debates (EP 04) since the eighth legislative period . By com­bining quantitative and qualitative content-analytical methods, it shows how discourse coali­tions develop and change within and between parliamentary groups . Not only did the ecol­ogy issue continuously take up more space in the budget debates but content alliances developed across factional boundaries, with the CDU/CSU and the Greens in particular converging over time and partly taking up each other’s arguments . The second readings on EP 04 provide a very good basis for comparison in this regard as they depict the antagonism between government and opposition annually in a largely unchanged framework, which allows to control possible intervening variables .