Abstract
AbstractPlatform firms have been depicted as having structural and instrumental power and being able to prevail in regulatory battles. This article, in contrast, documents how they have often adapted to regulations and provide different services across locales. I show that platform firms have a specific type of power, infrastructural power, that stems from their position as mediators across a variety of actors. This power, I argue, is shaped by pre‐existing regulations and the firms' strategic response, that I call “contentious compliance”: a double movement of adapting to existing regulations, while continuing to challenge them. I apply this framework to the expansion and regulation of Uber in New York City (US), Madrid (Spain), and Berlin (Germany).
Highlights
∗ I'm indebted to Christian Lagodny for excellent research assistance on this project
For useful comments on previous versions of this paper, I thank Mariel Barnes, Germán Feierherd, Nazli Konya, Juan O’Farrell, Tom Pepinsky, Kenneth Roberts, Christopher Way, and seminar audiences at the Government Department of Cornell University and at the International and Comparative Political Economy Workshop organized by ECONtribute & Cologne Center for Comparative Politics
This paper examines the influence that platform firms exercise over the state, and the regulatory conditions under which they operate
Summary
∗ I'm indebted to Christian Lagodny for excellent research assistance on this project. I show that the firm constructed infrastructural power, shaped by pre-existing regulations and the strategy of contentious compliance, and how this power impacted regulatory outcomes.
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