Protesting iconic megaprojects. A discourse network analysis of the evolution of the conflict over Stuttgart 21

Abstract

The past decades witnessed enormous transformations in the built environment of cities, and one of these trends is the development of iconic megaprojects. Public protests against these projects occur frequently, and scholars in urban governance have diagnosed this as an emerging ‘post-political’ condition, that is, as a sign of a deficient democratic politics. Others criticise this kind of reasoning as a ‘post-political-trap’ (Beveridge and Koch, 2017), and demand more research. This article responds to this debate with an empirical study of the popular protests against the infrastructural public transport project Stuttgart 21 in Germany. We apply discourse network analysis to investigate the evolution of the discourse, illuminate multiple dynamic connections between issues and actors, and apply factor analysis to identify the key issues of the conflict. Our study complicates and qualifies the arguments for a ‘post-political’ state of urban politics.