Transnational circuits of policy knowledge and discursive migration. The formation and transformation of planning policies in Argentina

Abstract

We analyse the migration of academic and policy discourses that contributed to (de)legitimise the formation of planning policies in Argentina since the 1950s. We focus on the communicative/collaborative rationality discourses emanating from Anglo-American academic circles that played a role in the revival of the Argentine planning system between 2004 and 2015. We adopt an evolutionary approach to policy travel and policy learning, deploying the concepts of discursive migration and discursive configuration to better understand how ideas, people and goods/resources reinvent themselves when transnationally circulating policy knowledge takes root locally. The migration process in Argentina led to the reinforcement of prevalent coordination mechanisms, redirecting concerns and conflicts into governance structures already existing, involving players already present and forms of expertise already dominant. The migrating collaborative discourse (self) transformed in relation to the receiving governance environment, becoming an effective compliance-gaining technique, while national actors found ways to engage and discipline provinces they depended on more than before.