This article deals with the relations between public policy instruments and production practices of objects related to government action. It demonstrates that the materiality of the instruments built to make a public policy object legible to its operators has independent effects on the relations among private operators, bureaucrats, and the public sector. Based on the bus service provision policies in the city of São Paulo between the 1980s and the 2000s, it shows that transportation policies are structured around the […]

This article deals with the State regulation of drinking water and sanitation services in the Metropolitan Area of Buenos Aires. Its main objective is to identify the continuities and ruptures in State regulation during the transition from private management (1993-2006) to renationalisation and State management (2006 onwards). The concept of “State capacities” (both administrative and relational) is used to assess regulatory performance. For the administrative capacities, the correspondence between the design and resources of the agencies, as well as the […]