Standstill: on power politics, know-it-all management and backroom democracy

How come the Flemish government has not succeeded in finding a solution to Antwerp's mobility problems after all these years? This book provides answers to that question. On 19 December 2005, the action group stRaten-generaal officially objected to a new motorway through the city of Antwerp and immediately presented an alternative. It was the beginning of a long battle against the largest planned infrastructure project ever in Belgium: the Oosterweel connection. Mobility experts, environmental experts, doctors, urban planners, business leaders, residents' groups and city-wide movements joined the protest. Measured by the passage of time, media attention and political commotion, this became the country's most important civil struggle of recent years, which continues to this day. The political management of the dossier gradually degenerated into a complicated structure of manipulation and deceit. Party interests, power politics and parallel decision-making created a black hole that gradually swallowed up every effort to achieve sober policymaking and ultimately to find valid solutions. In Stilstand, Claeys brings together his most crucial texts on the issue in a unique logbook. Like a Greek choir, he comments on the events in real time, reacts to political communication, criticizes the lack of transparency and citizen participation, informs about alternatives, calls for action.