introduced differs from the one at its site of origin. The empirical focus reveals that Bogotá model of BRT was not duplicated in South African cities but rather a variation, which focuses on the transformation of the minibus taxi system emerged. This suggests that policy models are polysemic and rather than duplicate, they modify and mutate to suit the needs of each importing jurisdiction. The adoption of best practice therefore takes place only when aspects of the circulating notion transform and combine with underlying conditions, thereby normalizing the particular technical arrangements and social rationalities for adoption. In concluding Chapter 3, it will be evident that human actors are central in the circulation and adoption of policy models, considerations that are the subject of the next section.
Tracing through Actors and Associations
Building on the debates around traveling urban policies, I argue that people and their associations drive learning and policy mobilities. Policy actors, including both state and non-state actors as well as architects and engineers (Rapoport and Hult 2017), consultants (Wood 2019b), philanthropists (Stone 2010) and so forth, frequently look elsewhere to detect, decode and distribute best policy practices (Cook 2008; Dolowitz and Marsh 2000; McCann 2008, 2011a; Theodore and Peck 2001; Wolman 1992; Wolman and Page 2002). The background, experiences, economic, and political position of each policy actor influence their decisions. Therefore, explorations of agency and power are important in understanding the way in which global and local actors survey and circulate particular policies.
Two scholars of the operation of global consultancies provide useful groundwork for this study of BRT. Larner and Laurie (2010) investigation of traveling technocrats in New Zealand and McCann’s (2011b) study of Bing Thom, a Vancouver architect-consultant hired by Fort Worth, Texas to “Vancouverize” the city, offer insight into the central role of non-state, extra-local actors in facilitating policy mobility. Larner and Laurie illustrate the role of traveling technocrats in the movements to globalize and privatize telecommunication and water services. In their analysis of mid-level technocrats enacting privatization techniques, they note that there are a number of supplementary actors including, in their case, New Zealand telecommunications and British water engineers mobilizing transnational flows. These professionals supply knowledge and cultivate its local adoption, forming associations that advance policy mobilities. McCann underscores the ability of policy mobilizers to influence development across localities, in spite of, and because of their extraterritorial authority. McCann (2013) furthers these arguments in his study of “policy boosterism”, a concept he uses to understand how policy knowledge is mobilized around the globe. He suggests that Vancouver’s extrospection is tied to a range of global and local policymakers. These contributions highlight the way in which localities are influenced by intermediaries in the circulation of best practice.
Also of interest is a study by Ward (2011) that offers insight into the actors and their methods for employing policy models in Manchester, UK. Their research focuses on Manchester city officials pursuing knowledge of Olympic and Commonwealth Games projects, and specifically the techniques in which they learned from previous host cities to exploit these opportunities to engage in broader economic development strategies. Officials visited cities whose best practice in hosting mega events had been broadcast around the world, such as Los Angeles and Lillehammer; their meetings with officials as well as site visits to sports-related infrastructure and associated regeneration sites were used to execute the redevelopment of east Manchester. In this case, the city’s failed bid to host a mega-event did not deter them from implementing the learning. Such points offer an opportunity to consider the manner in which local politics is used to convince (or subvert) particular actions and determinations taking place elsewhere as a part of the learning process. It also provides evidence of the importance of previous policy failure in ongoing decisions.
Such considerations for global and local policy actors, raises questions around who holds power in the city and who determines urban policy? Furthermore, how do policy mobilizers exert normative power albeit spatially and politically distantiated? Moreover, if international players are acting as decision-makers, then how do local elected officials such as mayors wield power differently than civil servants? Finally, how does the shifting role between public and private enterprise enable those outside of government to exercise power? A Foucauldian understanding of power suggests that it is something which circulates and “not only do individuals circulate between its threads; they are always in a position of simultaneously undergoing and exercising power” (1980: 98). Power thus is an “entangled bundle of exchanges dispersed ‘everywhere’ through society” (Sharp et al. 2000: 20). It is not composed of a fixed group acting in unison, but rather it is diffused through a multitude of places and spaces through the circulation of knowledge. Power is not limited or enhanced by geographic distance because actors can reach into other localities, influence decisions without political power and even keep ideas out of foreign localities (Allen 2003). The arguments presented in Chapter 4 do not presume that power is situated within institutions as Castells’ (1996) “space of flows”, or Lefebvre’s (1991) description of the systematic reorganization of institutional geographies, but rather follows Foucault’s suggestion that power is not a “zero-sum game”, an ensemble of actions that overlap and support one another to achieve mutually beneficial gains (Dreyfus and Rabinow 1982).
Chapter 4 explores the varied and sometimes unexpected decisions by policy actors as expressions of power relations, as well as the relationships formed prior to and because of the circulation process, which facilitates the adoption of ideas from elsewhere. This includes some reflection on actor-network theory and an exploration of both human and nonhuman actors within policy mobilities. In Chapter 4, I draw on Deleuzian ideas of assemblages to theorize and explain how networks form and sustain these circulations as part of network formation and assembly (Deleuze and Guattari 1972, 2004; Foucault 2003; Rabinow 1984). This theorization places policy travels and transfers alongside a host of urban happenings – capitalism, political contestation, as well as learning and mobility (Farias and Bender 2010; McFarlane 2011b). Larner and Laurie (2010) show how, within these global assemblages, experts easily travel between places mobilizing transnational flows (see also Larner 2002). Both McFarlane’s (2009) study of transnational movements and Robins’ (2008) research into social movements use this approach to demonstrate how networks exchange experiences, ideas and resources across the globe. McFarlane (2011a) interprets the movement of knowledge across spatiotemporal circumstances through the notion of assemblage, in which the actors and their knowledge and materials form an agglomeration. It is important to realize though that the assemblage is temporary – it constantly adjusts and alters over time (Ong and Collier 2005).
My exploration of both the global and local individuals involved in policy mobilities in Chapter 4 enriches these arguments, with empirical examples of international advocates and local implementers adding a focus on the intermediaries who link these two sets of actors, through exploration of their interactions. This focus on a wide variety of actors is particularly critical in understanding how and why circulated ideas are adopted locally. The information and experiences presented by these policy mobilizers are validated by virtue of their presence in the locality. That is, they do not simply land elsewhere; intermediaries, elected officials and civil servants in need of their expertise usually invite them or choose to provide an audience. The policy mobilizers usually present a vast field of possibilities but subtly direct their hosts towards a preordained solution. The local actors also participate in the game – they listen to the presentations, ask questions and at times are critical of the talk, before ultimately arriving at the same conclusions as the policy mobilizers. In some instances, the local actors rely on these international voices to validate previously planned urban investments. Chapter 4 will demonstrate the way in which policy mobilizers and local actors maintain a symbiotic relationship, both exploiting the other’s positionality to adopt circulated policy.
