Pricing carbon emissions is widely seen as an efficient way to reduce harmful greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. Nevertheless, the introduction of such market-based instruments (MBIs) is often limited by political obstacles, as actors affected by higher costs have an interest in preventing or limiting the application of MBIs. However, the policy position of political actors also depends on the overall actor constellation in the policy process and how MBIs are coupled with other policy issues. In this paper, we investigate the ongoing debate on taxing GHG emissions in Switzerland and use a policy network approach to analyze such inter-linkages between actor constellation and policy issues. By explaining how and why the Swiss climate policy network continues to support a limited carbon tax but has prevented a broadening of the tax so far, the study demonstrates the significance of structural characteristics in the politics of MBIs beyond individual costs/benefit considerations.
