Governance of hybridity: Policy design and on-demand food delivery

In this paper, I examine the challenges and opportunities confronting contemporary governance of hybridity through the case study of on-demand food delivery. As a service built on algorithm-based technology, on-demand food delivery is also known for its prominent precarity and physical risks for couriers. To delineate the challenges and opportunities, I compare how the on-demand food delivery sector is regulated in Melbourne (Australia), and Singapore, two Asia-Pacific cities less examined in the literature. Through a policy design lens, I demonstrate how the social construction of food couriers in other policy sub-systems has affected the on-going debates about courier treatment. This paper seeks to contribute to the broader debate concerning how to regulate hybrid digital (algorithm-based) platforms for food delivery through two contrasting contexts. This paper builds on Meng-Hsuan Chou and Catherine Gomes (2023) “Politics of on-demand food delivery: Policy design and the power of algorithms”, Review of Policy Research, https://doi.org/10.1111/ropr.12543