Leveraging knowledge through urban megaprojects: the re-circulation of policy models in domestic/national networks

GABRIEL SILVESTRE; GUILLERMO JAJAMOVICH

Delft

Seminario; Policy transfer, diffusion and translation in territorial governance and spatial planning in the Global South; 2020

Delft University of Technology y Politécnico de Torino

Policy mobility has usually given greater attention to what is clearly visible, ?successful?, andcirculating through global networks while paying less attention to how knowledge circulatesmore subtly through other networks. While contributing to address these gaps and engagingwith the megaprojects literature, this paper furthers this agenda by highlighting theimportance of paying attention to the afterlives of policies made with references toelsewhere. Focusing on what happens after a megaproject model is grounded, we arguethat in addition to scrutinising the export and import dynamics of policy mobilisation it is alsoimportant to examine how this knowledge is reshaped and taken forward to other places,especially more proximate ones where lessons may resonate more strongly. Focusing onfollowing the reformatted models and the agents involved, we argue that domestic policyactors are sensitive to national regulatory frameworks, funding, and contingencies thatconform to the (re)circulation of (parts of) the policy model. In that vein, we comparativelyexamine two urban megaprojects in Buenos Aires and Rio de Janeiro that introduced newpractices while making use of inter-referencing with attention to the actors who sought toleverage policy knowledge from these experiences. More attuned to the local dynamics,these actors performed a double role as knowledge brokers and policy entrepreneursdistilling context-specific lessons and getting involved in projects that advanced theirinterests.