Regulation and business power: the case of public transportation in Santiago (2007-2017)

Abstract Full understanding of regulatory processes requires taking into account their political dimension, until now rarely considered in public administration literature. The concept of ‘business power’ developed in comparative political economy contributes to comprehend this dimension. The case study of the transport system “Transantiago” presented in this article demonstrates that businesses’ structural power is of special interest. The process tracing applied to the case of Transantiago, shows that the inability of the authorities to impose their preferences is mainly due to the structural constraints they faced. The effects of this inability are observed in the bidding process and in the phase of implementation of the regulation process.摘要：对监管过程的完整理解，需将其政治维度纳入考量范畴——而该维度在当前公共行政（public administration）领域的研究文献中极少被关注。比较政治经济学（comparative political economy）领域提出的“企业权力”概念，可为理解这一维度提供有效支撑。本文针对交通系统Transantiago展开的案例研究显示，企业的结构性权力具备特殊的研究价值。针对Transantiago案例所采用的过程追踪法（process tracing）分析表明，监管当局无法贯彻自身政策偏好的根本原因，在于其所面临的结构性约束。这一政策执行乏力的影响，体现在招投标流程与监管规则实施阶段两个方面。