From Policy Transfer to Asymmetric Fragmentation: Differential Mobility of Urban Models in African Planning
Year: 2026
Type: preprint
Abstract: Urban models circulate toward African cities with claims to universal applicability, yet they consistently produce outcomes that diverge from their initial promises. This article argues that the explanation lies not in local implementation failures but in the very mechanics of circulation. Building on the critical trajectory from policy transfer theory through policy mobilities to assemblage thinking, the article constructs an original analytical framework organised around the fragmentation matrix. This matrix identifies five families of fragments composing any urban model in circulation: conceptual, metric, iconographic, institutional, and narrative. Each family exhibits differential mobility, travelling through distinct channels and producing different consequences for the receiving context. Three types of legitimation arenas selectively structure this diffusion, generating what the article theorises as asymmetric fragmentation: the selective, hierarchised, and unequally operational circulation of heterogeneous components. Applied to the African continent, the framework reveals that model dysfunction is not a contingent failure but a structural feature of the circulation mechanism itself. The article concludes that overcoming this structural inadequacy requires reconfiguring the epistemic conditions under which urban knowledge is produced and legitimised.
Source: Preprints.org
Institution: Konya Technical University
Language: English
Topic: Policy Transfer and Learning
Field: Social Sciences
Domain: Social Sciences
Open Access status: green
Funder: Konya Teknik Üniversitesi
OpenAlex ID: W7154229396