Transnationalization, hegemony and local politics: The case of Zuerich, Switzerland

In this thesis, I would like to demonstrate the contested and contingent nature of socio-economic 'globalization,' or better, transnationalization, in an unlikely setting: Switzerland. I try to achieve this goal in a case study on local politics, urban restructuring and "global-city formation" in Zurich, Switzerland's most important financial centre. The core of this thesis traces coalition politics, urban reform, and social movement struggles in the city of Zurich from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s and situates developments in local politics within "global-city formation": the spatial concentration of transnational corporate control functions and associated processes of local-regional restructuring. Empirically, this thesis is based on field research in Zurich, a significant part of which was devoted to conduct interviews with politicians, business people, planners, trade unionists, movement activists, academics and researchers. Theoretically, this thesis shares a Gramscian perspective on structural change and political action, which--if complemented by insights of radical urban geographers and social movement theorists--suggests that coalition politics and the cultural politics of everyday life are integral to the constitution and destabilization of urban hegemony. The main argument of this paper is that through local political conflict, urban reformists, squatters and youth protesters had an effect on the way in which Zurich was transformed into a "global-city" by destabilizing postwar growth politics, imposing constraints on urban elites and providing stimuli for the modernization of urban development.