Policy assemblages: proposing an alternative conceptual framework to study public action

Abstract

This paper looks to propose an alternative conceptual framework that could help policy studies to better capture the complexity and multifaceted character of contemporary policy processes. Mixing science and technology studies with critical policy studies, it sees policies as assemblages formed by an ample array of heterogeneous elements, from technical standards to everyday practices. Three major configurations of policy assemblages are explored: problematization (when an issue is turned into a matter of policy), infrastructuration (when a new infrastructure is organized trying to transform the issue at hand), and regime (when the infrastructure is put to work). In order to explore the empirical applicability of this conceptualization, the second half of the paper analyses one particular case: the introduction of ramps for wheelchair access in public transport buses in the city of Santiago, Chile. This case study will show how policies are never the pure application of rational guidelines or the result of powerful individuals but multifaceted processes in which a multitude of entities, all of them carrying different agencies, intervene and are continually reenacted, changing the policy's outcome in accordance with the presence/absence of certain articulations and practices.

Keywords:

• policy assemblages
• problematization
• infrastructuration
• regime
• disability
• Chile
• Transantiago

Notes

1. Such rationality, that could be defined as ‘a logical way to determine the optimal available means to accomplish a given goal’ (Alexander 2000, 245), rests on a realistic framing that assumes that the ‘data and observations that form the input of [policies’] analytic techniques are non-problematical’ (Hajer and Wagenaar 2003, 16). As a consequence concrete policies are seen as merely ‘the principles that govern action directed towards given ends’ (Titmuss 1974, 23). If such principles are rightly applied, then the policy will be successful.

2. This description will be based on the material collected by the author while doing fieldwork in Santiago between 2007 and 2009 with funding from CONICYT and Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships (grant numbers 11060348 and PIIF-GA-2009-235895 respectively). Fieldwork consisted mainly of (1) in-depth interviews with actors involved in the design of Transantiago and daily users of the system; (2) gathering of several materials in the form of research reports, papers, presentations, etc.; and (3) participant observation of practices of daily usage of the system. All the names of the actors involved have been changed in order to protect their anonymity.

3. This position could also be occupied by other entities, such as the market.

4. After reviewing the different kinds of buses available, the consultants found out that while there were several ways to include ramps in the larger bendy buses projected to run the trunk lines of the system, there was no model to include them in the case of the smaller microbuses projected to run in the feeder lines. As a consequence, they concluded that the objective of asking for microbuses with low floors and ramps was ‘impossible to achieve at any reasonable cost for the feeder fleet’ (TEC 2003, 78).

5. This is heightened by the fact that, with the passage of months, a growing amount of ramps could not be unfolded due to (1) missing parts derived from careless handling by users and (2) lack of regular maintenance.