Public Policy Instruments and Their Impact: From Analogue to Electronic Government in the Bus Services of São Paulo

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 dilemmas and conflicts associated with the production of reports and databases. This article suggests that everyday practices and instruments, especially those associated with the documentation of operational performance, are key dimensions to understand the limits and potential of both state capacities and the regulation of companies’ profits. Because of its materiality, documentation practices and document pathways, operate as devices and artifacts which structure opacities, asymmetries of information, and power struggles between the state bureaucrats and private companies in the construction of service legibility. This article concludes that the transition from the governance through analogue instruments to the governance through electronic instruments is characterized by more transparency and greater regulatory potential over the private sector.

本文探讨公共政策工具（public policy instruments）与政府行动相关客体的生产实践之间的关联。研究表明，旨在使公共政策客体为其使用者清晰认知的工具，其物质属性会对私营执行者、官僚机构与公共部门之间的关系产生独立影响。基于1980年代至2000年代圣保罗市的公交服务供给政策，本文揭示交通政策围绕着与报告编制及数据库构建相关的困境与冲突形成架构。本文指出，日常实践与工具——尤其是与运营绩效文档编制相关的工具——是理解国家治理能力的局限与潜力、以及企业利润监管的关键维度。由于其物质属性，文档编制实践与文件流转路径作为装置与人工制品，在构建服务清晰度的过程中，塑造了国家官僚与私营企业之间的信息不透明性、信息不对称与权力博弈。本文最终得出结论：从模拟工具治理向电子工具治理的转型，其特征是透明度更高，且对私营部门的监管潜力更强。