The order behind disorder: informality, power, and the resilience of a transport policy trap in Lima, Peru

Abstract

Massive internal migration in the sixties, a severe economic and social crisis in the eighties, and a radical neoliberal transport reform adopted in 1991 (Legislative Decree N° 651–1991) led to the emergence of a disorganized, inefficient, and costly transport system in Lima, Peru. In dialogue with the business power and policy feedback literature, we show that this system is rooted in the empowerment of leading private formal and informal transport actors and in the weakening of state transport control offices. These arrangements constitute what experts call a “policy trap,” a situation in which a trajectory is adopted that is difficult to escape due to prior reforms, public policies, and/or government decisions (Holland, 2017). This article analyzes two reform attempts to break the policy trap: the Integrated Transportation System (SIT) reform of 2011 and the creation of the Urban Transport Authority (ATU) in 2018. By focusing on the implementation of these reforms, we demonstrate the structural and instrumental power of informal and low-quality formal actors that sustain the system’s continuity, particularly their successful strategies of resistance and adaptation to the reforms. We document how these actors engage politically to oppose the implementation of reforms, lobby and support political actors who can represent their interests, and adopt new modes of informal transport to circumvent or profit from the new conditions promoted by the reforms. These findings exemplify the considerable challenges that middle- and low-income states face in adopting and sustaining reforms to regulate informal activities, such as transport.