Abstract

Aim of this work is to analyse the role that exceptionality had in the policy process of Lyon-Turin high-speed railway. In order to do that, the policy process is chronologically reconstructed, starting from the appearance of what has been called a true protagonist of the events: the so called «Legge Obiettivo», a law introducing extraordinary simplified procedures for infrastructures identified as strategic for the economic growth. Its fully top-down philosophy is one of the main causes of the rise of the main environmental struggle in Italy, which drove to turn back to ordinary procedure, but with the effect of expanding more and more the space for exceptionality and ambiguity on the procedure to follow.