Stuttgart 21 and the paradox of direct democracy

Although the idea of building an underground train station derived from the mid of the 1990ties, only in 2009 the project started and provoced increasing protest by the local population. What followed were the longest weekly street manifestations in German history and massive demonstrations of more than 100,000 people. The protest became nation wide news when police overreacted and demonstratiors were hurt. The election of a new regional (Land) parliament in 2011 has been decided by a colaition that reopened the debate on this contested project. After four decades of a conservative goverment, the promise for more democracy swept the first prime minister of the Green party into power.

However, the streategy of the protesters against Stuttgart 21 has been failing. When the referendum took place, the majority voted in favour of the multi billion euro project. Paradoxically, it seems that those who have been arguing for more democratic rights were not reaching their objective to stop the project. In this paper, the development of this process which opened up urban planning for direct democracy in Germany for the first time. It will look at the insitutional settings, the actors and the different levels of governance, as to explain how the process took note of the pro- and contra arguments and how an atmosphere of acceptance have been shaped. It will pay special attention to the social background and the urban context of Stuttgart, so the particularities and communalities with other initiatives in Germany arguing for more dircet democracy in urban affairs will be discussable.

The paper is based on intensive media analysis and interviews that the other have been conducting with different actors of the protest movement.