From tax war euphoria to the fear of stigmatisation: Understanding affect and resistance to tax policy transfers

The workshop calls for papers that outline methodological approaches to the study of emotions in public policy and politics. In my study, I employ queer-feminist social theories of affect and related methodologies to understand the dynamics of resistance to tax policy transfers. Emotions have recently gained attention in public policy research as a lens for studying policy dynamics (Maor and Capelos, 2023). However, their role in policy transfer processes remains underexplored. Policy transfer refers to the process by which policies or policy instruments are adopted from one political context to another (Porto de Oliveira, 2021). While resistance from domestic actors is increasingly recognised as a key feature of these processes (Pal, 2019), the emotional dynamics underlying this resistance have been largely overlooked (Kuhlmann and Starke, 2024). Thus, my paper examines the relationship between emotions and resistance to policy transfers by analysing the particularly contested adoption of a tax policy instrument to curb aggressive tax planning in Germany between 2007 and 2019. I explore how emotional dynamics emerge in my case, building on social theories of affect. Affect theories have emerged as a central strand of sociological emotion research (Scheve and Slaby, 2019). The postulated theoretical relationship between affect and emotion is based on the premise that emotions arise from contact with self-relevant objects (Ahmed, 2014). Affect theory is thus compatible with a constructivist understanding of policy transfers, which refers to such policies as mobile political objects (Romano, 2021). Methodologically, I utilize the approach of a "queer phenomenology" (Ahmed 2006, 2010) as an interpretative and object-centered approach for investigating affective dynamics in texts (Berg et al., 2019). The study is based on two data sets: first, I examine stakeholder comments and transcripts of expert hearings submitted in the context of public consultations. Second, I analyse statements made by opponents in public discourse, based on newspaper reports and parliamentary debates. This approach is complemented by a qualitative content analysis of counter-arguments in comment letters opposing the policy instrument. The adoption of a queer-feminist epistemology allows the arguments and statements to be situated in a critical perspective on power. Through my analysis, I identify two dominant emotional narratives – ‘tax war euphoria’ and ‘fear of stigmatisation’ – which reveal how resistance to the policy instrument functions as an identity-defence mechanism. The study thus contributes to a better understanding of the emotional dimensions of policy transfer and the role of experts and stakeholders in shaping policy outcomes.