Abstract
Abstract This article examines the diffusion of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs) in Brazil, demonstrating how important domestic factors interplayed with traditional mechanisms of diffusion lead to an expressive process of agencification. Although top-down, bottom-up and horizontal mechanisms played an important role in the Brazilian agencification process, they fail to explain the creation of IRAs in unexpected sectors or the frequent modifications that occurred at subnational levels in a short period of time. To understand how local political actors adapted the regulatory agency model to the Brazilian institutional legacies, field research was conducted, based on bibliographical, documental, and interviews with key political actors. The specificities of Brazilian federalism and the strategic role of the film industry, bureaucrats and politicians in (re)interpreting the agency model helped to boost the diffusion of IRAs in Brazil.
Highlights
The diffusion of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs), or the agencification process, observed in both developing and developed countries in recent decades was followed by an extensive literature that identifies the potential mechanisms at play in this process
The present study is motivated by the following question: what forces explain the diffusion of IRAs in Brazil? In order to focus on both commonalities and variations of IRAs diffusion process, this paper focuses on two “unexpected” results of Brazilian agencification: the creation of Ancine (Brazilian Film Agency) and the extinction of Asep (Regulatory Agency of the Rio de Janeiro State) and its division into two new sectoral regulatory agencies within a short period of existence
The unexpected outputs of the Brazilian agencification process - i.e., extension of the agency model to economic sectors without natural monopolies to regulate or concession contracts to monitorate and the delays and reformulations in the IRAs adopted at the state level - can be interpreted as a result of the distinct and creative ways in which local actors - bureaucrats, film industry, and politicians interpreted the concept of agencification
Summary
The diffusion of independent regulatory agencies (IRAs), or the agencification process, observed in both developing and developed countries in recent decades was followed by an extensive literature that identifies the potential mechanisms at play in this process. The Latin American version of the Regulatory state (Levi-Faur, 2003; Majone, 1997) influences the manner in which IRAs are adopted, interpreted and implemented by domestic political actors In this sense, Brazil is an excellent example of the diffusion of IRAs. Brazil’s agencification process resulted in the establishment of more than sixty IRAs since 1996, and this topic has been thoroughly discussed by local authors. The exceptionality of Ancine and Asep influenced a bottom-up methodological research strategy based on bibliographic and documental data, as well as in-depth interviews with key political actors involved in the creation of these IRAs and their subsequent modifications This bottom-up approach supported the integration of generic, nation-specific and sectorial-specific factors, and revealed that – whilst traditional mechanisms of. This paper contributes to more recent research that examines how the State is expanding - and not retreating - via regulation and regulatory agencies (see Haber, 2011; Levi-Faur, 2014)
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