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policy agendas promoted by other local actors are discussed. Mem-
bers of Fundación Extra are powerful families in Guadalajara that
pride themselves of having traditionally participated and influence
local and state politics. In other words, local media owners have their
own shifting beliefs about the city future and, therefore, a preference
for promoting particular urban policies. Indeed, several members of
Fundación Extra together with the empresarios of Ciudades Públicas
and promoters of business tourism in the city (including the owners
of ExpoGuadalajara, the city main convention center) came together
in 2005 to found gdl 2020. Their objective, however, was not just
promoting local growth agendas. What brought them together was [40] Logan; Molotch, 1987.
40
an agreement over a particular city model that they wanted to pro-
mote and translate into local public policy: “By 2005… we thought
we had found the right city model that Guadalajara needed to follow…
that brought us together… this model was one based on densification,
sustainable urban mobility, public space, and cultural policies” (gdl
2020 member interview, 2014).
The origins of this 2005 agreement between local empresarios and
media elites on how the city should be transformed can be traced back
to Peñalosa’s visit in 2003 and it was later reinforced through study
tours to Bogotá and by other speakers that gdl 2020 invited to Gua-
dalajara, including other Bogotá mayors as well as Barcelona urban-
ists. Therefore, this local alliance between empresarios and media elites
came together through an intercity policy learning process in which
practices such as hearing stories about the achievements of other cit-
ies became powerful mechanisms to align their members around the
need of implementing brt and bicycle transportation policies as a
way to transform their city as Bogotá had apparently done it. Indeed,
the Bogotá story helped create a later alliance between gdl 2020 and
local politicians in the mid 2000s that facilitated the eventual launch-
ing of Vía Recreactiva (Guadalajara’s Ciclovía) in 2004 and the con-
struction of a brt line in 2009. As Stone has noted: “Causal theories,
thus, can be both a stimulus to political organizations and a resource
for political leaders seeking to create alliances”. Having the local me- [41] Stone, 1989, p. 299.
41
dia elites aligned in gdl 2020 helped also mobilize public opinion
around Bogotá’s policies in Guadalajara and put pressure on the local
and state governments to implement them.

CONCLUSIONS

Using the terms policy diffusion, policy transfer and policy [42] Simmons et al., 2008.
42
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mobilities, several authors in the social sciences have shed light
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[43] Dolowitz; Marsh, 2000.
on how policy models and “best practices” are produced, circulated
and contested and the different ways in which they influence policy [44] Peck; Theodore, 2010.
72 PERSuASIVE PRACtItIONERS AND tHE ARt OF SIMPLIFICAtION ❙❙ Sergio Montero

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