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why can’t your city do it? This was the powerful moral of the Bogotá
story that has been told over and over in conferences, study tours and
digital platforms worldwide. To characterize policy learning beyond [9] Montero, 2017a.
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assumptions of policy actors as rational learning individuals and to
better understand the power of narratives in policy learning and adop-
tion, I draw in the next section from a rich tradition in urban planning
scholarship that has highlighted the importance of narratives and
storytelling in planning as well as more recent debates that seek to [10] Throgmorton, 1996; Sander-
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conceptualize the role of emotions in planning practice. 11 cock, 2003; Lieto, 2015.
As noted by Leonie Sandercock, stories can act as a catalyzer of [11] Hoch, 2006; Gunder, 2011.
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policy change “partly by inspirational example, and partly by shaping [12] Sandercock, 2003, p. 18.
a new imagination of alternatives”. Storytelling is different from other
ways of transmitting knowledge: a story has a setting, a chronological
logic (a beginning and an end), a clear plot with protagonists (heroes,
villains, innocent people) and a moral tension that normally points to
a potential solution. However, to act as a catalyzer of change, a good [13] Sandercock, 2003; Jones; Mc-
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story needs to have a “potential for generalizability” and be persua- Beth, 2010.
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sively told by legitimate and credible storytellers. Similarly, recent [14] Sandercock, 2003.
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debates that seek to conceptualize the role of emotions in planning [15] Throgmorton, 1996; Jones; Mc-
practice have noted that what makes policy actors pay attention and Beth, 2010.
get inspired by a particular policy does not only reside in the outcomes
of that policy through some standardized or rational evaluation mech-
anism. It is also about the capacity of the policy — and, more specifi-
cally, the expert presenting the policy — to emotionally move actors
and show them the effects of that particular policy in their well-being
as well as in the well-being of those they care about. As noted by Hoch: [16] Hoch, 2006; Gunder, 2011.
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attention, perception and reflection used in planning judgment also rely upon
emotional dispositions and sensitivity. The practical activity people engage in
when learning and adopting a belief involves more than cognitive judgment
about the value of the belief (its truthfulness or goodness). The activity draws
upon emotions and feelings (its meaning and significance). [17] Hoch, 2006, p. 368.
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He further argues that persuasive planners are not necessar-
ily those that present the best scientific evidence available but rather
those that “shape the emotional response of relevant stakeholders”,
in other words, those that can “organize the objects of persuasion in
ways that actively subvert emotional intelligence, manipulating im-
ages and text to project beliefs that will provoke a predictable emo-
tional response”. 18 [18] Hoch, 2006, p. 378.
To better conceptualize the role that emotions play in policy trans-
fer and adoption, it is necessary to understand the practices behind
the circulation. In another article, I analyzed the important role of [19] Montero, 2017a.
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study tours to Bogotá as a key practice that facilitated the adoption of

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

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