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of cities, both in the global North and the South. From all programs [2] Hidalgo; Gutiérrez, 2013;
2
experimented in Bogotá, two have been particularly referenced and ad- Wood, 2014.
opted in other cities: 1) TransMilenio, Bogotá’s now famous bus rapid
transit (brt), a system of high-frequency rapid buses with dedicated
lanes and stations that carries over one million passengers per day;
and 2) Ciclovía, a 70-mile weekly street closure program to promote
urban biking and physical activity that gathers one million Bogota-
nos every Sunday in streets normally reserved for car traffic. Both pro-
grams have been replicated in more than 100 cities in the last decade. [3] Montero, 2017a.
3
In this paper, I show that the adoption of these two Bogotá’s trans-
port policies in Guadalajara, Mexico, was not the outcome of a rational
process of technical evaluation but it is rather related to the construc-
tion and global circulation of a simplified narrative of urban transfor-
mation that links a small set of public space and transport programs
executed in Bogotá as the reasons of Bogotá’s urban transformation
during the 1990s. Based on participant observation, archival work
and more than thirty interviews conducted between 2012 and 2014
in Guadalajara, I highlight two key elements in this process of policy
transfer through storytelling. First, the role of a particular type of ex-
pert that I call here “persuasive practitioners”. Bogotá’s persuasive
practitioners do not rely on the mobilization of technical or scientific
knowledge. Rather their legitimacy lies on a narrative that puts them
at the center of Bogotá’s urban transformation success. This is a story
that emphasizes transportation and public space interventions as the
cause of Bogotá’s “urban renaissance” while silencing important po-
litical economy reforms and the contradictions and failures of public
space and transportation policies in the city. Yet, it is precisely this
simplification of the causes of Bogotá’s urban success what helps
these experts inspire the creation of urban alliances that will push for
the adoption of Bogotá policies in other cities. Second, I highlight the
role of conferences and policy forums as key spaces where this per-
suasive narrative process often takes place. Moving influential urban
actors from policy knowledge to action requires not only exchanges of
knowledge and stories but active processes of inspiration, persuasion
and trust building that, despite the increasing availability of online
policy repositories, are still best mobilized through face-to-face con-
tact. Based on an analysis of the practices and spaces that facilitated
the creation of a multi-actor coalition that resulted in the adoption of
Bogotá’s policies in Guadalajara, this paper reveals how simplistic sto-
ries of urban transformation lubricate the global circulation of urban
policies by facilitating new urban governance arrangements. In doing
so, I show that narratives surrounding particular policies are crucial
for understanding urban policy transfer. In opposition to rational
choice, path dependency, and other theoretical frameworks aimed at

60 PERSuASIVE PRACtItIONERS AND tHE ARt OF SIMPLIFICAtION ❙❙ Sergio Montero

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